These innovations have made Amrik Sukhdev Dhaba in Murthal the truck drivers’ favourite since 1967

Amrik Singh’s uncle, Sardar Lakshman Singh, ran a dhaba in Miller Ganj, near Ludhiana in Punjab, around 260 kilometres from Murthal. It was popular among truck drivers and business was thriving. He did not have a son, but his sisters did. He asked one of his two sisters who had four sons to allow him to adopt one (unofficially; this was common practice in India in those times). This is how Prakash Singh, her youngest son, arrived to help his uncle run the dhaba at Miller Ganj. All was going well. So well that his second sister asked Sardar Lakshman Singh to take on her son, Lal Singh, too. Prakash Singh and Lal Singh came to run the dhaba together.

But before long, the cousins had a falling out, and Sardar Lakshman Singh had to work out a solution. He decided that Prakash would be given a new dhaba to run at another location, while Lal Singh would continue working alongside Lakshman Singh in Miller Ganj.

The search for a new place began. Truck drivers, loyal customers as they were, came to the rescue. They told the family that there weren’t good places on the outskirts of Delhi where they could take a...

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