Mohan's Room Search

A phone-sized board of the rooms and truck parking free tonight along one stretch of highway, with a number to ring.

Who this is for

Mohan Lal runs a dhaba on NH-48 near Kotputli, eleven kilometres past the toll. Nine tables, four rooms upstairs, and a back lot that takes six trucks if they park sensibly. His phone rings from ten at night till two in the morning, drivers asking if a room is free, and he is usually at the tandoor with both hands busy. Half those callers he never meets, because by the time he wipes his hands they have driven on to Shahpura.

How the job is done today

Mohan's nephew Ravi keeps the room numbers on the back of a bill book and rubs out the parking count with his thumb. There is a WhatsApp group of eleven dhaba and lodge owners on this stretch where somebody types koi room khali hai every hour, and forty other messages bury the answer. Drivers slow down, shout from the window, and carry on. Regulars have Mohan's number saved. Strangers have nothing, so at three in the morning they take whatever they happen to see lit up.

The screens, in order

1. Tonight on this stretch — Shows a driver in one scroll which places nearby have a room or a truck spot free right now and how far ahead each one is.
2. Place page — Gives one dhaba or lodge its own page with the rooms, the parking, the rate and a button that dials the owner.
3. My place — The only screen Mohan uses, where he taps the room count and the parking count up or down for tonight and nothing else.
4. What I just changed — Lists every change he made, newest first, each with an undo beside it so anything can go back exactly as it was.
5. Add a neighbour — Lets Mohan or Ravi put a nearby lodge on the list with a name, a phone number and a rough point on the map.

What it keeps track of

• Places — name, which highway and which kilometre stone, whose phone number, what it has, rooms or truck parking or hot food or a bathroom
• Tonight's count — which place, how many rooms free, how many truck spots free, what time the owner last touched it
• Rates — which place, what a room costs for the night, what a truck spot costs, cash or UPI
• Every change — who changed it, what it was before, what it is now, when, and whether it has already been put back

The one decision that matters

Whether a driver can book, or only ring. Booking means Mohan has to answer a website while serving forty plates, and a room held for somebody who never turns up is a room lost. So no booking. The list shows the count Mohan last set, along with the words last touched forty minutes ago, and a large button that dials him. A driver at one in the morning can judge a slightly stale count for himself. He cannot judge a confirmation that Mohan never saw. The site's job is to get the right two people talking, not to stand between them.

What to leave out of the first version

No ratings, no reviews, no photos. One bad star on a stretch with eleven dhabas becomes a fight in the WhatsApp group, and Mohan will stop updating rather than be judged. No online payment either, because money changes hands at the counter as it always has. Leave out search by town and district as well. This is one stretch of one highway, and the whole of it fits in a single scroll.

How you would know it worked

At eleven at night a Punjab-plate truck pulls in and the driver says he saw the corner spot free on his phone twenty minutes back. And Mohan notices that nobody has rung to ask whether he has rooms at all. They only ring to hold one.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I run a dhaba on NH-48 near Kotputli with four rooms upstairs and parking for six trucks, and I want a website drivers can open on their phone to see which places on this stretch have a room or a truck spot free tonight, with our rate and a button that rings me straight away, no booking, because I cannot answer a phone and a website at the same time. My own page should let me tap the room count and the parking count up and down in two seconds, show the time I last changed it, and keep a list of everything I changed with an undo next to each one, because I am scared of pressing the wrong thing and losing my rooms. Let me add the lodges of neighbours who ask me to. It should work on a slow signal, in Hindi and English.