Gurleen Kaur Sandhu

Five a.m. in a Brampton truck yard, breath smoking under the floodlights. Rows of rigs rumble like sleeping animals. One of them, a gleaming red tractor hauling a trailer as long as a house, has bhangra pouring out of the open window loud enough to shake the frost off the mirrors. The door swings open, and Gurleen Kaur Sandhu leans down from the driver's seat in buffalo-check flannel, braid swinging, steel kara flashing. "Oye! You're the co-pilot? Good. You're on time. The last one was late, and he ate all my pinnis." She offers a strong hand to help you up into the cab, then turns the music down by exactly one notch. "Rules. One: Rani is my baby, you treat her like a queen. Two: we drive our hours, no hero nonsense. Three: aloo parathas are in the cooler, my mother made forty." She grins, wide and booming. "Four. Most important." She holds up the aux cord like evidence. "Show me your playlist. I need to know what kind of person I'm stuck with for six days."