LOGISTICS MONITOR
“Every human being is entitled to respect and dignity. How pathetic it is when adults can’t abide such a basic lesson in humanity,” thunders legal eagle Alan Shore in the courtroom battle in Boston Legal, a 2004 TV serial (Season 1, Episode 5: An Eye for An Eye). He was fighting on behalf of a patient who was allegedly taken for a ride by a general practitioner for not “prescribing any medicine and not referring to any expert medical opinion for psychiatric treatment.”
I paused the TV show. Rewound for a replay. Alan Shore sounded like Sushil Cherian, a licensed commercial vehicle driver and a veteran supply chain consultant in Kochi. Not just him, Rajesh Ranjan Jha, currently managing logistics for a reputed cement company, endorses the respect and dignity angle to build a decent pool of good truck drivers.
Why is the society boorish or insensitive towards others, particularly truck drivers? Portly Cherian jumps in: “In my childhood, my friends were proud of their father’s work. Several of them were sons of rail engine drivers or firemen who shovel coal into the engine furnace to generate steam to enable the engine to roll and pull compartments attached to it.”
Many of them were of the Anglo-Indian breed. In the erstwhile Madras state, my interaction with such children as playmates in the Perambur locomotive workshop colony in my childhood endorses Cherian’s observation. These children’s behaviour was confidence-filled because their fathers never suffered low self-esteem. They were very proud of their job as engine drivers or firemen. Their positivity rubbed on their wards, undoubtedly.
The sense of pride
On the other hand, truck drivers do not have pride in revealing themselves as drivers. They feel that it is a low-grade job. It is not. But how can one help someone who suffers from such an inferiority complex? “Please get a peon’s job for my son in some sarkari daftar or a private company in your city. I don’t want my son driving trucks,” lamented the mother of my driver friend in Jhunjhunu, the cradle of truck drivers in Rajasthan.
I was visiting them in 2014 at the invitation of Vikram Singh, the concerned mother’s younger brother, who works for a trucking company. I travelled with him and his nephew, whose career options were debated, from Pant Nagar, Uttarakhand to Hosur, Tamil Nadu carrying new trucks in a novel truck-on-truck format for Ashok Leyland over five days. The nephew was a good driver, I found. It was just a question of time before he set earning on his own. Yet, his mother was not happy about her son being a truck driver. Better be a peon in an office than being a truck driver! Unfunny and painful feeling.
Perhaps to heighten the drama, she threw a bombshell: “If you can help him get a peon’s job, I am ready to elope with you!” She uttered this in the hurricane-lamp-lit hall where we sat down for dinner, and significantly, the entire family was gathered.
Of course, everyone laughed, but the import of the statement was not missed. Did I hear correctly? I was equally shocked. Her utterance in that manner revealed her desperation and the respect society bestows on truck drivers.
During my interactions, I found high school-going children of truck drivers across India preferring to describe their father or brother’s job as “in transport business” and not “truck driver”.
The “transport business” tag may mean an agent, broker, booking clerk, or whatever in that vertical. In some instances, driver-fathers have invested their earnings or through cheap loans dished out by truck manufacturers to change their job description from “truck driver” to “fleet owner” of one truck or more.
This act helps massage the ego of their children. It is an act of sacrifice, I consider, in the sense that most of these owner-drivers are owners for namesake because they continue to function as drivers, knowing very little about critical aspects of the trucking business but which are essential for survival.
Of course, there are thousands, if not millions, of truck drivers who do not worry about society’s nasty behaviour based on their job profile. They remain loyal to their job, ensuring the welfare of their families.
This is where I beg to differ with many well-wishers of the trucking community batting for changing the designation of drivers to “pilots”. Such a change of terminology will be purely cosmetic. What’s required is the mindset change of the society per se towards these “soldiers on highways”. Yes, there is a dire need for societal transformation. Nothing less. We cannot attain this goal easily and quickly. But it’s worth pursuing.
“When the truck driving as a profession ensures pride, respect and dignity, the so-called driver shortage will automatically vanish. But where to begin?” Cherian asks rhetorically as a parting shot.
Indeed, where to begin from? is my question too.
Also, by the same author: Lina and her pitched battle with the Big Tech: An assured slot for her in US economic history whatever the outcome – THE NEWS PORTER
Pictures on top/featured and of the railway engine provided to News Porter by Ramesh Kumar
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