Author: RA

Somewhere between Gurgaon and Chandigarh, while cruising along the smooth expanse of National Highway 44, I realised that the road beneath my wheels had quietly lost its name. What was once the legendary Grand Trunk Road—a highway that had carried emperors, armies, traders, caravans, and pilgrims for more than two millennia—now survives officially as little more than a number on a signboard.

The transformation while being logical was an administrative activity leading to some efficiency, but it also erased something far older than asphalt.

A Road Older Than Empires

The origins of the Grand Trunk Road reach deep into antiquity. During the era of the Mauryan Empire, more than two thousand years ago, an important trade route connected the fertile Gangetic plains with the north-western frontiers of the subcontinent.

Over centuries successive rulers maintained and expanded this route, recognising its strategic importance. But it was the Afghan ruler Sher Shah Suri who transformed it in the sixteenth century into a truly organised imperial highway.

He planted trees along the route, built caravan serais, dug wells, and ordered the construction of distinctive distance markers called Kos Minar. These cylindrical towers, erected at intervals of roughly one kos—about three kilometres—allowed travellers to measure distances across the long road stretching from Bengal toward Lahore and the Afghan frontier.

Under the Mughal Empire, the road flourished further, linking great imperial centres such as Delhi, Agra, and Lahore. For centuries the Grand Trunk Road functioned not merely as a highway but as a moving artery of civilisation—carrying commerce, ideas, languages, religions and armies across the northern plains of the subcontinent.

The Silent Sentinels: Kos Minars

Even today the past occasionally reveals itself beside the highway. Every now and then a traveller may notice a cylindrical brick tower rising unexpectedly beside the modern road. These are the old Kos Minars—once lime-plastered pillars nearly thirty feet tall that marked distances and guided travellers along the imperial highway.

Between Delhi and Ambala alone nearly thirty such structures still survive, though many remain half hidden behind encroachments or modern construction. Some have been restored, albeit somewhat crudely, by the Archaeological Survey of India.

During my recent drive one such tower caught my attention near the village of Khandra in Panipat district. Standing quietly beside the roaring traffic of NH-44, the restored pillar seemed like an old sentinel from another century, watching the modern highway rush past. These modest structures once helped guide caravans, royal messengers, traders, and pilgrims along one of the great roads of Asia.

Where Myth and History Meet

This corridor has witnessed not only historical events but also the echoes of far older stories. Near the town of Karnal lies the ancient landscape of Kurukshetra, revered in the epic Mahabharata as the battlefield where the great war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas was fought.

Whether viewed as mythology, sacred narrative, or distant historical memory, the geography of that epic is unmistakably rooted in these plains of Haryana. Long before imperial highways were formally built, ancient pathways must have crossed this landscape, linking settlements and kingdoms.

Thus along this single corridor, memory stretches from the mythic age of the Mahabharata to the medieval battles of Tarain and onward through the empires of Sher Shah, the Mughals and the British. Few roads in the world carry such layered echoes of time.

A Road That Shaped History

Near Taraori, close to Karnal, the decisive Battles of Tarain were fought. Control of this corridor meant control of the road leading to Delhi and the Gangetic heartland. When Muhammad Ghori emerged victorious in the second battle, the route to Delhi opened before him, paving the way for the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate.

From Panipat to Kurukshetra, this highway runs through landscapes where history has repeatedly changed the course of the subcontinent.

The Disappearance of a Name

Yet this ancient road met a curious fate in modern India. In 2010, India reorganised its highway network into a systematic numbering grid, creating hundreds of national highways across the country. Under this system the historic Calcutta–Delhi–Amritsar stretch of the Grand Trunk Road was absorbed into NH-44.

In one quiet administrative act, a road whose name had echoed across centuries was reduced to a number on a map. Travellers speeding along NH-44 remain largely unaware that they are moving along one of the most historic corridors of the subcontinent.

Perhaps the road itself might echo the melancholy sentiment expressed by Faiz Ahmed Faiz:

     “Nisār main terī galiyoñ pe ae watan ke jahāñ,
Chalī hai rasm ke koī na sar uṭhā ke chale.”

“निसार मैं तेरी गलियों पे ऐ वतन कि जहाँ
चली है रस्म कि कोई न सर उठा के चले।”

I bow before the streets of my homeland,
Where it has become the custom to walk with lowered heads.

The lines seem almost prophetic for a road where millions travel each day, unaware of the history beneath their wheels.

Remembering the Road

Many ancient roads survive today only as archaeological memory—Rome’s Via Appia, China’s Silk Road, Persia’s Royal Road, and the Inca Qhapaq Ñan; all these are relics of the past and not used as roads any longer, however, the Grand Trunk Road is different. It remains alive.

Millions of vehicles travel along it every day across India and Pakistan, unknowingly retracing a route that has carried caravans, armies, traders, pilgrims and ideas for more than two thousand years.

Numbers may organise roads on a map but names carry memory. Restoring the Grand Trunk Road’s historic name alongside its administrative designation is not merely an exercise in nostalgia. It is about preserving civilisational memory.

At a time when cities, towns, and streets across India are frequently renamed for political or ideological reasons, the name “Grand Trunk Road” stands apart. It carries neither sectarian identity nor political affiliation—only the accumulated weight of history. Perhaps NH-44 could remain its official administrative designation while the historic name of the Grand Trunk Road is proudly displayed along its length.

And sometimes a civilisation is remembered not through its monuments, but through the roads that once connected its people, its stories, and its history across time.

Rajinder Arora
Delhi-Gurgaon