After spending a few hours in Yamuna Nagar and a overpowering rush of nostalgia of life in the sleepy mill-town, we left for Delhi.
A few kilometers out of Karnal, we got our first glimpse of the kos minars, medieval milestones that were first made by the 16th-century Afghan Emperor of India, Sher Shah Suri, and later on by Mughal emperors.
The towers are solid round pillars, around 30 feet in height. They stand on a masonry platform built with bricks and plastered over with lime. Though not very impressive aesthetically, being milestones, they were an important part of communication and travel in the Afghan and Mughal empires. Alongside these towers, serais (roadside inns) were also built for tired and weary travellers.
Kos minars came up extensively in the north - they were extended as far as Peshawar and in the east to Bengal via Kannauj, along the Grand Trunk Road, which is today's National Highway 1. The geographic span makes for nearly three thousand kilometers of Mughal highways, accounting for nearly 1000 kos minars, i.e., 1 every kos or 3 kilometers. Today there are 49 towers in Haryana and 5 around Ludhiana in Punjab, protected by law, as heritage structures.
As dusk was setting in, we reached Murthal. We stopped by at the Haveli, a roadside resort for a bite and cup of tea....
Clean and slick, the Haveli is a great example of India's bustling highway economy....
A relic of the past welcomed us in to the Haveli....
A quick loo break and it was evident how times had changed - swank and spotlessly clean loos...
These were unthinkable of in the past....
Seriously, when you are on the highway, a clean loo is something that is really comforting....
A strapping durbaan, obviously a Punjabi, ushered us in with a well meaning Sat Sri Akal!
How I miss all of this in Mumbai!
The Haveli restaurant was plush and inviting....
But my favourite highway meal of parathas, chhole and maa ki daal wasn't on offer at that hour...
So we had to move outdoors to the food court....
These guys make cardiologists' businesses boom - look at how these big fat aloo tikkis are getting fried....
But this is the real thing, not the anaemic ragda pattice of Mumbai.... urghhh
Ahhh.... pav bhaji....
But this is not match for the yummy ones you get in Mumbai.... I swear I had pav bhaji for dinner every night, for nearly 40 days when I moved into Mumbai 10 years back.... I love them so much!
And after plates of hot aloo tikki and spring rolls, and obviously, a few cups of tea, we were back on road, headed to Delhi....
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