They say home is where the heart is — unless you’re a trucker. Then it’s wherever you find Wi-Fi and clean showers.

I always make it a point to visit the annual Transport Show at Montreal’s Palais des Congres.

The Palais is a massive combine of permanent exhibition halls, in the heart of downtown, just a few hundred yards from the ancient cobbled streets of the riverside by the old quarter.

The Transport Show is a truckers’ paradise. Daimler, Volvo, Iveco, Hino, Isuzu, Mack, Freightliner, you name the brand and it is there. Tractors, trailers, fancy buses and spares and accessories such as tires, lights, horns, paints, batteries, oils, stereos, cigars, chewing tobacco, truck spittoons….. anything that goes on heavy trucks is on display at the Transport Show. Lots of chrome, lots of metallic blue and turquoise, lots of fire breathing monster|sexy chic decals on the sides.

Don’t know what a decal is? The word is short for decalcomania, a decorative technique by which engravings and psychedelic designs are transferred to surfaces such as metals and pottery. 

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Then you come upon ‘accessories’ of a different category and you tarry a while longer there. Girly magazines. Phone book CDs with interesting numbers you can call when you’re trucking through any North American hick town. X-rated DVDs with blonde hitchhikers and very large truckers, always two hitchhikers to one trucker. Viagra. Condoms, CDs with compilations of truckers’ slang and swear words.

All the above are intrinsic parts of long-distance transportayshun. Oooh yeah.

Then there are ‘How-to’ books and videos. The hottest selling title there last year was,’ Ten ways to scream ‘m—er F—er’ at the guy in the next lane. This year the title that was flying off the shelves was,’ Tailgating and sideswiping for dummies’. Tailgating is the practice of driving too close to the vehicle in front, just to scare him shitless, the gap so close that safe stopping to avoid collision cannot be guaranteed.

Sideswiping is when you’re driving cheek to jowl with another vehicle, perhaps when you’re trying to overtake him. You suddenly swerve into his lane to frighten the bejesus out of him just for fun and you end up grazing him, sending him into a ditch.

Truckers love doing those things. Breaks the monotony, like. No, let’s say it the way girls in India do – ‘breaks the monotony only’.

Now about the “semis”. A semi is a heavy-duty vehicle that transports goods over long distances and consists of a “Trailer”, coupled to a “Tractor”. The Tractor has the engine, the driver’s cab and sleeping berth and usually has 10 wheels and the Trailer, which carries the load, has 8. North Americans call it by many names… “Tractor Trailer”, “18-wheeler, “Big Rig” or just “Semi”. The Brits call it “Articulated Lorry” (or simply “Artic”), “Juggenaut”, “Biggie” and so on. More about this later.

Then there is the “combi” or “double” that pulls not one but two trailers. Steering, especially backing up into a parking spot, can be very dicy, since the driver must know which way and at what distance to turn the steering wheel to line the mammoth up properly.

Years back, in preparation for an impending layoff, I got myself a Class-1 license, which says you can drive almost anything – truck, tractor-trailer, combi, anything (except 2-wheelers). It wasn’t easy getting the piece of plastic. I failed three times trying to back up into a tight parking spot.

On the fourth attempt I failed again, but this time the SAAQ examiner was a middle-aged woman and she said, “Qalis, you’ll never learn how to drive this thing.”

In the end she shook her head, sighed and gave me a pass. Because I had made her laugh all the while. Honest to God, true story. Btw, “qalis” is a French slang swear word which is like saying “Damn it” in exasperation.

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Some of the huge semis on exhibit look sleek, exotic, shaped like a torpedo or a diplodocus, with all sorts of fins, baffles, lights, rubber and chrome. And some look downright sinister, all black, with opaque, tinted windows, chrome on just the exhausts, a battery of lights in front, multiple heavy treaded wheels, powerful radio antennae.

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You won’t find any ‘monster trucks’ on display in this show. Monster Trucks are generally smaller pick-up trucks that have been heavily modified, with humongous wheels and suspensions that make them look grotesque, somewhat like that cousin, Duky, of Daffy Duck. You know, that duck with his head the same size as Daffy’s but the rest of him huge?

You haven’t heard of Duky? I feel sorry for you. Always remember, the only way to develop a well-rounded personality is to read more and more comics as you get older, till at 50+, you’re reading only comics.

Monster Trucks have their own separate show during the fall.

The Transport Show attracts lots of large, chubby, bearded men who communicate with surly grunts and have chronic flatulence. A guy with a squeeky voice and a smile will look as out of place here as Baba Amte at the Bildeberg Conference. For a week, the Palais des Congres sounds like the inside of a pig pen, with all those grunts ‘Gringa Grunga! Huggly Wuggly!! GriggaWigga! Humpi hoo!!’

Alas, many visitors are there not for the trucks and buses, though. You seen one truck you seen ‘em all, they’ll say. It’s what’s on display that you don’t normally associate with truckers or trucks that they come to stare at. Girls in shorts, their airbags fully deployed, draped over a hood here or reclining on the driver’s seat with one high-booted foot up on the steering wheel there. Models, employed by the exhibitors to attract the crowds.

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By the by, truckers don’t just grunt. Grunt, they do when they interact with civilians like you and me. Otherwise they have their own slang that they use when they communicate with each other on the road or with their bases. It’s a whole new lingo. Like, for instance, diesel is called ‘motion lotion’. A female highway patrol cop is ‘titty bum bum’ . The slow lane is the ‘granny lane’. A ‘seat cover’ is a female hitchhiker and a ‘lot lizard’ is a hooker who frequents truck stops.

There, don’t you suddenly feel enriched? Besides the above, truckers have their own visual signaling, their unspoken communications on the road. For instance, if you are overtaking another truck, he will flash his headlights on & off to tell you that you have cleared his vehicle and may safely change lanes in front of him.

Trucking in Canada is a terrific way to travel all over North America, while you earn at the same time. And comfortable. Air-conditioned cab, feather soft suspension, fully automatic transmission, a cabin just behind, with a bunk, satellite TV and a toilet, satellite connectivity with first-aid stations and law enforcement agencies, a  company-provided smartphone with unlimited roaming and data plan. If you’re on the northern side of the law, you will have help close by, even when you’re practically in the middle of nowhere.

And a double bunk bed. Enough for you, two hitch hikers and four tits.

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On the road, the trucker might stop over at a truck stop, to rest his weary butt. A truck stop is a gas station with pumps that are programmed to pump in diesel simultaneously into the two tanks that are on either side of the tractor. First he sticks a nozzle into one tank, then he circles the tractor to the other side and sticks another nozzle into the other tank. Both pumps are coordinated and you get one bill.

After he’s filled up with the company-issue debit card, the trucker will stretch his legs or grab a bite at the fast food joint there. Belching and picking his teeth, he’ll then huff and puff around the aisles of the convenience store that invariably goes with the gas station.

A truck stop convenience store is specifically designed for truckers. It’ll have all kinds of GPSs, bluetooths, cellphone accessories, lots of leather (jackets, belts, cowboy boots, hats), sunglasses, condoms, gum, chewing tobacco, cigars, shaving accessories, toiletry. And girlie magazines and ‘accessories’.

Everything is top-of-the-line stuff. Truckers get really well paid and are normally always loaded.

And, by the by, truck-stop convenience stores are filled with “mothers”. The trucker will swagger around the aisles, stopping at stuff that catch his eye. He’ll pick up a bluetooth, wave it at the man at the counter and grunt,” Hey, how much you sellin’ this mother foa? Wha..? Aitee? Those Flyin’ J fuckers ovah theah at Chatanooga are givin’ them away, man, at twennie a pop. Where you bin?”

Large truck-stops even have lounges, where, for a nominal fee, truckers can relax on sofas, watch a movie or the news on the cable. Next to the lounge will be showers and changing rooms for truckers who’ve been on the road a while and need a bath. If you wish to stay the night, catch a shut-eye, engage in some jigir-migir, there’s of course the cabin at the back of your own truck cab. Simply hook up the tractor-trailer to an electrical outlet if there is one, for a fee. Otherwise, the on-board power generation system can take care of you for one whole night, no sweat.

You’ve noticed me using the word ‘tractor’. Note that a tractor in the context of transportation is not the farm tractor that we normally associate with the word. Over here, a tractor is the front part of the tractor-trailer combo and the trailer is the long, load carrying part that is hitched to the tractor. Together, they form a gigantic 80ft long centipede with 18 large tires. If you’re the trucker, you sit in the cab of the tractor, to get to which, you climb up 12 feet, with the help of three hand-grips and footholds. If you’re giving a ‘seat cover’ a lift, you place your hands under her butt, dally there a bit (just a bit, otherwise she’ll be wondering what’s taking you so long) and then heave her up into the cab.

But remember, giving lifts is prohibited and could cost you your job, your permit, your Class-I rating and you’d end up receiving a load of demerit points. Demerit points increase your monthly insurance premiums and your Class-I permit renewal fees and beyond a certain number of demerit points, they won’t allow you to drive. But if you can’t keep your zipper on, I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.

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In contrast, trucking in India is very different. Firstly, in India, most trucks are straight-bodied, not tractor-trailers. Indian trucks are called ‘lorrys’, a term left over by the Brits. In Canada, Lorry is a woman’s name, though she might spell it as ‘Lori’. An Indian lorry carries 10-15 tons max. Wimpy, effeminate. A normal Canadian tractor-trailer carries 45 tons. And the level of driving comfort just cannot be compared.

The best part is that, if you start off being a trucker here, you might get to be a star one day. Don’t know what it is about truckers but many have gone on to successful movie and music careers. Rock Hudson, Sean Connery, Liam Neeson, Elvis Presley, Charles Bronson and Chevy Chase being just a few.

Just like in India, here too, especially on the Montreal-Toronto circuit, you get a lot of Sardarji (Sikh) truckers. You’re driving along the 401, minding your business, when you inadvertently stray a bit into the right lane a bit too close to the massive tractor-trailer you just overtook. And you see the huge tractor cab creeping up next to you and keeping pace long enough for you to hear, “Abey Pandchod, bund da kabooter! Hut, nahin to gand pe laath parega!” You look up and there’s ‘Praji’ giving you a withering glance and speeding up, leaving you shell shocked.

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I once traveled in a lorry, in the summer of ’79. An overnight trip, from Harihar to Bangalore. I‘d been to the Mysore Kirloskar plant in Harihar on business when I ran out of funds. Entertaining the receptionist the previous evening had severely depleted my finances. What was I ta do? She had a ponytail and she liked to swat my tiddly with it.

There were no credit cards those days and cheques were accepted only if the establishment knew you well. Travelling back by any organized mode of transport requiring the payment of a fare, was therefore out of question. And there I was, stuck in this hick town, with the last fifty I had on me.

Not in any way overlooking my immediate priorities, I got myself a pint of Old Monk, tucked it into my overnighter and with the tenner that was left, I took an auto-rickshaw to the outbound Bangalore highway check post, otherwise known as the Octroi Naka, arriving there smelling like a brewery.

I staggered out of the auto, fished out the tenner and for a moment, stared at Gandhiji on it. Did I catch him wrinkle his nose or was the tenner wrinkled? I giggled drunkenly. Gandhiji departed, relieved, and Babasaheb Ambedkar came in (ie: I got back a fiver). It was late, around ten at night. The pint bottle of Old Monk had so little rum left, you could count the number of C₂H₅(OH) molecules in there on the fingers of your hand.

I tottered up to a Leyland truck standing next to a dhaba and saw the driver, a sardarji, sitting on a khatia (rickety wooden cot) and wolfing down dal and roti with a whole onion and those really hot green peppers. Every time he bit into a pepper, he hiccupped and wiped a running nose with a rag that he had draped round his shoulders. On a small stool, right next, was a bottle of arrack and a glass.

Arrack is home-brewed Indian country liquor, a cloudy colourless liquid, with stuff floating in it, some of the stuff self-propelled before they drowned. Arrack consists of alcohol at around 55-60%, volume by volume. H₂O molecules enjoy minority status in there, I tell you. One swig and you’re zonked.

Sardarji sized me up and settled for a fiver after I gave him a hard-up story. “Go sit in the cab,” he growled. I weaved my way to the truck and climbed on, in a stupor. You don’t hitch a lift in a truck in India unless you’re sozzled senseless. I curled up in the far corner of the cab, nestled my bag behind like a pillow and passed out.

Don’t try this, okay? It’s not safe, especially if you happen to be a clean-shaven, not-too-bad-looking, slightly wimpy 25-year old. Some of those truckers can really have the hots for guys like you and you just might end up as his sex-slave for the rest of the trip, his unwashed richard mistaking the end of your alimentary canal to be a truck stop. 

Be that as it may, as I snored inside the cab, I immediately started having this beautiful dream. I was a trucker backing up my Tata1210 next to a dhaba and there was Mumtaz (the hot 1970s Bollywood siren) running alongside, cradling two ripe coconuts close to her chest, one in each hand, and singing,”Lelo re lelo babu, peelo naryel pani…..”.  Roughly translated that meant …. “Here, drink my coconut milk”. She jiggled around to the point where I was about sign her on to a large long-term contract for coconuts, when she suddenly faded out.

I was having the mother of all dreams when a sudden heave brought me awake and the first think I noted was that the sun was up and there was water all around. Sardarji had driven the truck right into a shallow river (more like a large stream actually) and he was busy washing it.

“Where are we?” I took off my shoes, rolled up my pants and jumped out into the stream. The water was muddy but felt good. My feet sank into the soft bed. Over on one side, was a dhaba, an adobe building in the shade of a copse of ‘hapoos’ mango trees.

“Tumkur,” he went on washing the windshield. “If you’re done with your beauty sleep, maybe you can come and give me a hand,” he flung a plastic bucket and a mug toward me. I scurried around filling the bucket and throwing the dirty river water at the truck for the next couple of hours, until the sun was right over our heads. By the time we were done, it was lunch time and Surdie drove the truck back up the bank, into the shade of the trees. He beckoned me to come sit with him on the khatia and eat.

The dhabawala (inn-keeper) had meanwhile caught a chicken and BBQed it. We had a full meal of delicious chicken tikka masala, naans, rajma daal and a few stray flies. It was the most satisfying meal I’d had in a long long time. Sardarji paid for everything. He refused to take the fiver I had left on me.

We sat there a few minutes in silence. The calm, the sweet breeze, the “murr-murr” of tyres on the highway in the distance, I was lost in this beautiful wilderness. Sardarji too seemed that way. Or maybe he sensed that I wanted to just hang around a while. He went on reclining on the charpoi, pagri removed for comfort, puckered eyes staring up at the blue expanse overhead.

It was dark by the time we reached the outskirts of Bangalore. At Yashwantpur, I said, “I’ll get off here..”. Sardarji eased to a halt and I collected my stuff and leapt off. 

As I started to turn to thank him, he thrust a tenner in my hands. “Here,” he said gruffly,” You’ll need this for auto fare,” and he was gone, leaving me staring back at the truck as it careened into the traffic, belching black smoke, turned the corner and disappeared into the dusk.