The Weight of the Road

The year was 1997, and I was twenty-two, a fresh graduate with a degree in commerce and no job offers. My friend Vikram, who had landed a decent position at a bank, had just bought a secondhand Royal Enfield Bullet—a beast of a machine, olive green, with a throaty roar that vibrated through your bones. He was a devotee of Sai Baba of Shirdi, and he’d decided to take his first long ride from our city Pune to Shirdi to seek blessings. I, with nothing to do, jumped at the chance to ride pillion.

We left at dusk, the sun bleeding orange over the hills. The plan was to reach Shirdi by midnight, where we’d find a budget lodge and attend the morning aarti. Vikram was an expert rider, having grown up on his father’s farm, but the Nashik highway in those days was treacherous—narrow, potholed, and frequented by speeding trucks and wandering cattle. As darkness fell, the road turned into a ribbon of tar under a velvet sky, the only lights being our single headlamp and the distant glow of villages.

About two hours into the ride, as we crossed a particularly desolate stretch between two towns, the engine sputtered. Vikram cursed, pulling over to the side. The bike’s battery was dead. We had no tools, no spare parts, and the nearest town was a good fifteen kilometers back. “We’ll have to push it,” Vikram said, his voice grim. “There’s a dhaba ahead, maybe five kilometers. We can ask for help there.”

So we pushed the heavy Bullet through the pitch-black night. The asphalt was worn, and the bike’s weight bore down on us, our shoes scuffling against the gravel. Sweat trickled down my back despite the cool air. After what felt like an eternity, we saw a dim light flickering in the distance—a small dhaba, half-derelict, its signboard swinging on a rusted hook. The proprietor, a gaunt old man with hollow cheeks, agreed to let us leave the bike there overnight. He offered us a room in the back, a dusty space with a single charpai and a flickering bulb. “You can rest till dawn,” he said, his voice a dry whisper. “But beware, the road is not safe for the living after midnight.”

We took it as a joke, too exhausted to care. We lay down on the charpai, Vikram’s snores soon filling the room. But I couldn’t sleep. I felt a strange unease, as if the darkness was pressing against the thin walls. I saw the old man outside, staring into the void, his shape outlined by the flickering bulb. Then I heard it—a low, guttural sound, like stones grinding together. It grew louder, and I realized it was the sound of footsteps on the road, but they were heavy, slow, dragging.

I peeked through a crack in the door. A figure emerged from the darkness—a tall, gaunt man in rags, his face obscured, his head tilted unnaturally. He walked past the dhaba without acknowledging it, but as he passed, his head turned sharply, and I saw his eyes—pale, milky, with no pupils. He smiled, a grotesque stretch of thin lips, and then moved on, disappearing into the night. My heart hammered. I woke Vikram, but by the time he woke, the sound was gone. He grumbled, telling me to sleep.

In the morning, we found the bike repaired—the battery charged, the tank filled. The old man said a traveler had stopped by and offered to fix it. We thanked him, paid, and were on our way. The rest of the journey was uneventful, and we reached Shirdi by midday, the temple’s white dome a welcome sight. We offered our prayers, and I felt a sense of relief, but something lingered at the edge of my mind.

On our return trip, we took the same road. As we passed the dhaba, it was gone—just a patch of dirt and a broken sign. We thought we’d misremembered. Then, as dusk fell, we saw the same figure again, standing by the roadside, his arms outstretched as if to stop us. Vikram swerved, but the bike tilted, and we skidded onto the gravel. When we looked up, the figure was gone.

We made it back to Pune, but something changed. Vikram became quiet, always looking over his shoulder. His health declined; he had recurrent nightmares of a heavy weight pressing on his chest. I, too, felt a lingering dread, as if the road had imprinted something on us. Years later, I read that stretch of highway was built over an old burial ground, and many travelers had reported seeing a ‘shepherd’ who only appeared to those in distress, offering help but demanding a toll—not of money, but of a piece of one’s spirit. We had passed, but we had carried his weight ever since.

To this day, I cannot ride a motorcycle at night, and I never take that road again. The weight of that journey, of that creature’s gaze, still haunts me. Sometimes, in the silence, I hear the grinding footsteps, and I know he is still there, waiting for the next weary traveler.