MOTORINDIA embarked on its third Happiness Truck project with the first leg covering Kanpur, Allahabad and Dhanbad, among other cities. Here is an account of the first leg of the exciting expedition
Campaign Planning Avijit Lahiri | Words Shiv Arora | Photos Naushad Mohamad
The revving of the engine, howling of the wind, passage of time, protraction of the winding road, reverberation of radio music, expansion of the magnificent world – in the end, road trips are what we make of them. As is said, ‘mile by mile one hits the milestone’. So, it was time again to hit the road with Happiness Truck 3.0. Remember that happiness is a way of travel, not a destination. Let’s look at life through a windshield, not through the rear view mirror and begin this journey to unravel new experiences.
MOTORINDIA’s journey to traverse the entire country with the Happiness Truck 3.0 was flagged off on April 14, 2022 at Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar in Delhi. We were privileged and equally thrilled to have Valvoline as our Title Sponsor for this edition. We had BharatBenz as our Trucking Partner. Then we had Excelite as our Lighting Partner and KT Telematic Solutions as our Navigation Partner.
At the flag-off ceremony, it was wonderful to have the presence of eminent personalities such as Sandeep Kalia, Managing Director, Valvoline Cummins; Mukesh Kumar, Diesel Engine Head, Valvoline Cummins; Abhinav Sinha, North Head, BharatBenz; Harish Sharma, Director, Excelite; and B Balaji, Marketing Manager, and Amit Yadav of KT Telematic Solutions. We were also delighted to welcome M Maini, President, Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar Association as one of the key guests on the occasion. Avijit Lahiri, Manager – Strategic Marketing, and Head – Happiness Truck 3.0 Campaign, MOTORINDIA and Rajesh Rajgor, Associate Editor, MOTORINDIA, felicitated the guests and marked the start of Happiness Truck 3.0.
Getting on the Road
We commenced the journey on April 17, 2022 and travelled on the Yamuna Expressway which is a six-lane, 165 km long, access-controlled expressway, in Uttar Pradesh. It is presently India’s third-longest expressway since February 2017. It was built to decongest the older Delhi-Agra National Highway (NH 2). Being one of the most prominent expressways, our team did a shoot in the evening and this marked the beginning of our campaign on road. Then we headed towards our first city, Kanpur. We reached there in the evening, enjoyed our dinner and rested in the hotel.
On April 18, early morning we had our breakfast and at around 11 am we all reached the Transport Nagar and began the ‘Happy Day’ with our Happiness Truck. The Transport Nagar is the nerve-centre of commercial and industrial activities. We started with some games and fun activities and this was followed by interaction with our partners who also demonstrated their products in their respective stalls. We had an incredible time with the truck fleets, mechanics and operators in Transport Nagar and presented them with water bottles and key chains as a token of appreciation and happiness.
That evening, we left for Allahabad. After a long five-hour straight drive via NH 19 and AH 1 from Kanpur, we finally reached Allahabad, a place famous for its Kumbh Mela and Triveni Sangam. As we all were really tired after a long day, we settled ourselves at our hotel and left for dinner. After coming back to our hotel we drifted off into sound sleep. The next day i.e. April 19 our Happiness Truck was all set to explore the new day in a new city. We had our breakfast and left for Transport Nagar. We did our setup, our Happiness Truck was ready for display and we began with our event. As usual, my colleague began with games and fun activities then after the crowd had gathered we introduced them to ‘MOTORINDIA presents Happiness Truck 3.0’, its vision and mission, following it up with interaction with our partners. Then we met the trucking community and had a small interview session with them.
Later we went with our team to have lunch and rested for some time in our hotel. We began our journey later in the evening and since it is so very important to maintain the momentum, we got the face of our campaign – the Happiness Truck – refuelled, refreshed and rejuvenated to lead its way to Dhanbad, also known as the Coal Capital of India. The next day we were all excited to meet the truck fleets and operators at the Transport Nagar. The event was flagged off with some ice-breaking activities and interaction with our sponsor partners. We were delighted to have Arun Patnaik, the state head of Odisha and Jharkhand, Shubrato Ghoshal of Valvoline, Yash K of Excelite and Rishi Automobiles as event participants.
We took the opportunity to discuss various innovations and business opportunities and then left for our next destination, Shaktigarh. It was a long distance of 183 km from Dhanbad. We took a halt mid-way for lunch. During our travel via NH 19 at around 8:30 pm the shed of our truck was blown off due to the high-velocity winds but this was salvaged on time. Our team, without wasting time, fixed it up and we continued on our way. It took us almost five hours to reach the destination. After an exhausting day, we went for dinner, followed soon after with deep sleep. On April 23, we were all set to unravel some new experiences at Shaktigarh.
Giving us company at the event we had members of the Kanksa Truck Owners Association and other esteemed dignitaries, including Secretary Sanjeet Rai, President Animesh Rai, Cashier Deependu Ghoshal, advisor Prashanto Rai, Valvoline’s state head of retail Sanjiv Jha and BharatBenz’s Rajat Biswas. We had an insightful and amazing session interacting with the Kanksa Truck Owners Association. This was followed by lunch with our team. Incidentally, Shaktigarh is famous for its sweet preparation called ‘langcha’. We found several shops selling these dark red sweets along NH 19. We treated ourselves to this delicious sweet and got to know from the locals that Durga Puja is incomplete without a plethora of sweet and savory recipes and the langcha is one of these.
Stay tuned for more updates from the pan-India expedition in our next issue