On the road to Agra, travelling to see the Taj Mahal, we found ourselves passing a seemingly endless convoy of trucks. Well, not so much a convoy as a convention, since the trucks were stationary. Miles and miles of motionless juggernauts, their drivers smoking biddies or drinking chai on the roadside. I turned to my colleagues and said, facetiously, ‘Sustainable transport.’ We had intended to see one of the Great Wonders of the World that day, but had stumbled across another. Our driver explained that the trucks were queuing to pay a toll levied by the Delhi government. The queue can last up to four days, though some drivers expedite the process with palm grease.In temperate climates, food left in a truck for a day may suffer some spoilage.
