Every week, Swarun Singh Bal takes a trip from Toronto to the Mexican border for an outfit called Cal Vinson Trucking. In fact, he's Vinson's go-to guy. The day I phoned to meet Swarun, he'd been called in on his day off to help some other driver.

He has a spotless record and his supervisors describe him glowingly. One gentleman, Al Sobottka, who managed Bal for more than a decade, says he wishes all drivers were as reliable.

Swarun learned to drive in Northern India on mountain paths where mules barely fit. I've actually been to the area and can attest to the extreme conditions. In that part of the world, you need a special licence to drive the hills.

Swarun had one, and after several decades of driving, he was named -- get this -- the best commercial driver in India. In all of India, for goodness' sake! The prize: a new car and 80,000 Rupees.

The year: 1967. Did I mention that he is, in his words, "76 or 77"? Swarun was born poor. He didn't own shoes until he was 11. When he was in "about the third or fourth grade," Swarun had to quit school and go to the city to work. A man from his village ran a restaurant and young Swarun was hired on to wash dishes. At 16 he found himself upping with the British Army and preparing to fight in Kashmir. That's where he learned mountain driving.

These days, the licence plate on his aging car reads "25 May 7T." That's the date he and his family arrived in Montreal. "Canada," he asserts, "is definitely the best country in the world."

For 15 years, he delivered meat around Montreal. Only when his son moved to Toronto as a licenced pilot with his own Beechcraft did the family migrate to the Ontario capital. Here, he signed on with Magnum and drove linehaul for almost 20 years.

Of course, in the meantime came 911. If you look and dress like Swarun Singh Bal, that date takes on special significance.

Swarun says he is stopped and searched with far greater frequency on trips through the States, but, he says, "I don't blame them. They have a job to do to keep their country secure."

For a man who hasn't been past grade three, he can recite Indian and Sikh history as if he had a doctoral degree. A good Sikh, he says, must be disciplined enough to move with the times. So although he knows strict adherence to his religious beliefs, including carrying the ceremonial dagger known as the Kirpan, he leaves it at home when he travels.

"If it's snowing out, you have to adapt to the weather. If one cannot carry the Kirpan, one cannot."

The same applies to a hard hat, he says. "If you want to maintain the discipline of wearing your turban and your employer has rules that say you cannot, you should find other work."

On the road, Swarun eschews satellite radio or CBs. He says he prefers to while away the hours marveling at "God's miracles of nature. When you constantly think about everything around us, all the places you go and how every little thing in the world has its purpose, you will never get bored."

When he's not driving his '95 Mack, he's at home tending to his frail and mostly bedridden wife Surinder Kaur who was robbed of her vision a few years ago by diabetes. Fortunately, he has a live-in nurse on hand to help out when he's away -- but he has to pay her salary out of what he takes home from Cal Vinson trips.

But gripe? Like his former manager Sobottka says, "Swarun never complains about anything."

Before I met Swarun, I didn't realize that "Singh" means lion. Now I know why.