Truck Dhina Dhin.

My fascination with trucks goes back to the days of Terminator-2. This was when the T-1000 (Mercury-Guy) chases Arnold, who is riding a Harley Davidson, and still catches up with the Harley with immense ease. This was the first time when I felt the amazing power granted to the person behind the wheels of these vehicles. In India, since childhood we were used to see trucks totally overloaded, managing to barely crawl their way through traffic not leaving much differences to spot between them and bullock carts. However this was different, it was the first time I felt awestruck by a truck. And then it started, I started noticing trucks along with all the other luxury cars shown in all the Hollywood movies. Well we did try showing our own Indian trucks pulling off some stunts in Bollywood movies, but those didn’t really seem logically plausible. The most memorable one was in the movie “Road”, when Manoj Bajpai chases a Tata Safari driven by Vivek Oberoi and rams the truck into the Safari. At that scene even my pet cats stopped watching the movie. Anyway, moving on, then came numerous Hollywood movies presenting a show-stopping display of the power of their trucks in their movies like Terminator-3, Die Hard-4, Transformers to name a few. So when I arrived here in the US, along with the Audi’s, the BMW’s, the Merc’s, the Lexus’s and countless more awesome cars I was also impressed by the trucks which I got to see. On my way to Columbia, I saw numerous trucks some big, some bigger, some huge, some humongous, some driven by women, and all of them nicely lit so that everyone can identify them accurately in the night. Obvious cause they are powerful, fast and quiet. And that is when American Trucks got added to my list of things to photograph in the States, in order to send back home, along with the other cars and the hot babes. ;-)

Over the next few months, I never really got a chance to photograph anything impromptu. Partly cause I don’t own a camera (Yes I don’t, no need to give that expression of surprise) and partly because none of my friends who have a camera carry it around everywhere. So when we decided to take a trip to the Lake of Ozarks, I was the one who suggested Sandeep to take his $550 camera (excluding accessories) so that we could take lots of pictures of us and the cars on the road. As Sandeep was going to do the driving, it was me who had all the exclusive rights to the photo coverage of the trip. So as soon as our trip commenced, I started off on a clicking spree shooting everything that moves or does not move or in short, everything. Sandeep in the mean time was busy driving at the maximum speed limit of 70 MPH and even then somehow we were the slowest car on the road. The tomato red, Ford Focus (OURS), speeding at 70 in the right lane and still all other cars were cruising past us from the other lane. Damn! That makes you feel like a loser already. Still I kept urging to keep the car below the maximum limit. Much better to get overtaken by even the most pathetic pick-ups on the road, than shell out $100 to the cops.

Soon the trip became merry as the sound system of the car was awesome, Sandeep got to do what he likes the most – drive. Nitali got to do what she likes the most – gossip with Sandeep. Santosh got to do what he likes the most – listen to senti songs of Aashiqui on the iPod. And me? I was reminding Sandeep of the speed limit, gossiping with Nitali, listening to songs with Santosh and doing all these low-priority tasks while taking snaps at a rate of 22 snaps per second. Why 22?? Try Wikipedia.

Suddenly there it was - a bottle green truck, much more magnificent than any I have ever got to photograph and it was right in front of us. I immediately told Sandeep to drive past him at the smoothest pace that he could manage so that I could get a steady shot. As we passed by the truck, we were looking in awe at the mere size of it. It was so huge that our car was just the size of its two wheels put side by side. As we overtook it, I managed to get the perfect shot.

I was so happy that I started showing everyone my brilliance in the art of photography. In the meantime, the truck driver saw me take a snap and was wondering why I was taking snaps of the vehicle. Now such a truck however magnificent it was for me was still a very normal thing for an American like him. His thoughts were running haywire and I bet he thought we were either planning to blow up his truck, or rob his truck or God knows what else was going on through his mind. Me on the other hand/car was thinking about taking more snaps in order to get the perfect shot. I turned around and took 2 more shots of his truck. Now he went mad, he started gaining on us in order to make us pull over and ask for an explanation. We saw the truck driver gaining on us. I was even more happy cause I was getting better shots, which drove him even more mad. On a highway of 70, we were doing 70 and he was doing 90. And what better time that this for Sandeep’s self respect to kick in. Sandeep announced – In my living history, I have never had a truck overtake me and it shall never happen in the future – and started driving as fast as he could. This was it for the truck driver, first we were taking snaps and now we were not letting him overtake. He used all the muscle of his machine and came up to our side. This was when we realized that it wasn’t a good idea to challenge his ride with ours. Sandeep relaxed on the steering wheel and we allowed the truck driver to pass. And all this while, I was still taking snaps of the truck.

Now it was his time to get on top, after overtaking us he came into our lane and started slowing down. We tried overtaking him and he immediately came into our lane. We tried overtaking from the other side, he came into that lane as well. So we stayed in his lane for some time and then he started stopping the truck. That is when we realized that this guy was making us pullover. Now why would this guy want to make us pullover, was the question we were asking us. Maybe he was upset cause of the snaps, maybe he was upset because he wasn’t allowed to overtake us but like my knowledge had been enriched from the Hollywood movies, all I could think about was the movie – The Fast and The Furious – when the truck driver is carrying a shotgun, because there are cases of thefts on trucks, and when he shoots the crap out of Vin Diesel’s friend. Then someone managed to look at the terrain outside which was lonely till miles away, maybe he was going to mug us. Maybe he had unwanted stuff in the vehicle and would break the camera; it would cost me $550 + accessories as I was the one holding it. All these thoughts were running in our minds when Sandeep decided he had had enough. The truck had come to a standstill, so Sandeep immediately stepped on the accelerator and tried zooming past the truck. Now it was enough for the truck driver, as soon as he saw us overtake him. He tried to catch up with us. However the heavy load of the truck and the automatic transmission did not allow him to gain speed that fast. Before he could start driving at a decent speed, we were almost a mile away from him.

But I was sure that he would catch up and then what would happen, I dared not think about it. And then Sandeep had a revelation to offer. He hadn’t taken insurance for the car. The rest of the people immediately had their fingernails inside their respective mouths. For the next few minutes our driver drove steadily at 70. And I watched steadily out of rear window for any signs of an approaching bottle green truck which didn’t seem so awesome now. The others got pretty relaxed by now, but I was sure that he would return. And he did, soon we saw him come up from the past the horizon. This was too much for us, we told Sandeep to pull up into a gas station of a nearby town as at least there would be someone around in case this guy came to mug us or tried to kill us. But Sandeep kept insisting that if anything goes wrong we can call 911. Yeah right! As if they would be waiting for our call and would turn up as soon as we called them. But no one could convince Sandeep, he kept driving on. It was not long before he caught up with us again, this time I dared not take any snaps or he would have rammed his truck into our tiny car. We let him pass and he drove on without any signs of wanting to stop us. Now we were really relieved. But Mr. Driver now got more excited and wanted to overtake him one more time. This time when we were overtaking him I saw him gesturing to me through the window. My knowledge of movies made me realize that this was a gesture to pull over. I told everyone that he’s telling us to pull over. After a minute of mutual discussion, we decided to pull over and get this done with. We pulled over to the side of the road and he pulled over a couple of meters behind. And while we were stopping Sandeep forgot to put the handbrake on and the car moved a little. We thought that was it .. the truck has rammed into us from behind!! We looked back but the truck was quite far away. So we properly applied the handbrakes and waited for the truck driver to come out. I was more worried that he might be having a gun, so I wanted him to get down before I got out of the vehicle.

After a few moments of struggling with his door, the truck driver got out of his truck. He seemed in his forties and was huge. He was wearing the type of dress Hardy wears from Laurel and Hardy. Only that he was twice as big as Hardy. We on the other hand, Santosh, Sandeep and me, were the size of Laurel – combined. He came towards us and walked straight towards me. I was holding the camera tight, in case he tried to break it.

Truck Driver: Hey, why the hell are you taking snaps of my truck man?
Sandeep: We are new to this country and this guy (pointing to me) is taking snaps of everything around here.
Truck Driver: [to me]: Why are you taken photographs of my truck man?
Me: [Looking at him]: That’s cause I’ve never seen such a big .. [realizing my mistake and looking towards the truck] truck in my life.
Truck Driver: What is that? A digital camera?? You’ve got film in there??
I took 2 steps to keep a safe distance from him.
Sandeep: Yeah it’s a digital camera.
At that point I was just glad that Sandeep didn’t start giving specification of the camera including the filters.
Truck Driver: So did you take photographs or did you take a video of my truck?
Me:[From outside hurting range, showing him the photos]: Just photographs .. See.
Sandeep: We can delete them if you didn’t like them.
I pressed the camera against my chest gesturing “NO WAYS!!”
Truck Driver didn’t say anything.
We looked at each other for a couple of moments, before the truck driver set off on his way towards his truck mumbling on his way back .. “Just wondering why the hell you were taking snaps of my truck man!!”
Santosh: Have a good day!!

We waited till he reached the truck, lest that he should turn back and start shooting at us. Then when he reached his truck we ran to our car and started moving before he could ram his truck into our car. Soon we were on our way to the Lake of Ozarks. Thankfully we didn’t see the truck for the rest of our journey. We didn’t realize that the stereo wasn’t on for the remaining journey, and I had tucked the camera safely far beyond my reach so that my urge to photograph wouldn’t take over me again. The others soon started chit-chatting among themselves, and a visibly shaken me could just manage one sentence.

“I’m never photographing trucks in my life ever again!!!!”.