Says Satnam Singh, a Jamshedpur-based truck-driver, ``My wife is waiting desperately for the money for our children's school fees. What do I tell her? I am stranded here for the last four days and don't know when I will able to give her the news that I will be back home soon with the money.''

Some of them seem to have already realised who the real `losers' would be. ``More than the transporters it is us who have been badly hit. Our families' survival is based on truck movement and when that doesn't happen our chances of survival go down,'' a Punjab-based truck driver, Ajit Singh, points out.

And with each passing day the struggle becomes grim. ``After all we have to spend time in an alien state where we don't know many people who could loan us some money,'' says another driver from Uttar Pradesh, Bhishambhar, adding that even if the transporters loan them money, it would be deducted from their wages when the stir ends.

But then the truck-drivers have no alternative, for they cannot go back with an unloaded truck. ``Unless we don't get a consignment how can we go back. Who will pay for the diesel cost?'' questions Satnam Singh. Even the road-sides dhabas have started cashing in on their dilemma by hiking the prices of foosdtuff.

Interestingly, these drivers -- who not long back were tied to the schedule of long driving hours, at times almost 24 hours -- now find it difficult to `kill' time. ``Some of us play around with cars. Some listen to music and few of us move around in the local market looking for what is available. We just have to kill free time,'' explains Parminder of Ludhiana.

But some are finding the free time a `healthy' break from the hectic `on-road' schedule. ``Long driving hours gets on your nerves at times. It is a good break,'' remarks Krishnan of Andhra Pradesh.

But Krishnan can afford to enjoy the `vacation' as he is a bachelor and has a big land back home to take care of his parents' financial needs.But Raghav of Tamil Nadu is not that fortunate. ``My wife is ill. And our financial conditions forces me to think how my family is going to survive without money,'' he regrets. The stir even forced some truckers to opine that the agitation was unjustified in the first place.

``I would have been pleased to be part of the stir, but rationality demanded that there should have been a diesel hike. Besides, I don't understand why they are raising hue and cry over the hike. Even the transporters can make a corresponding increase in the transportation cost,'' commented a truck driver, requesting anonymity fearing that his outburst could loose him a consignment from a babu and a chance to be back home with his family.