We’d faced weather as diverse as it could get: snowstorms, hail, bone-biting cold, dust storms, lashing rain, thunder and lightning, and burning heat, but through all this both man and machine shone through. We’d driven through the diversity that epitomises India - from the barren moonland of Ladakh through the cultivated plains of Punjab, carrying on through the dense forests of central India to end at the coast in Kanyakumari. We’d blasted them across the plains, coaxed them across narrow, broken roads and thrown them around some twisty southern roads to cover over 4000km from Kargil to Kanyakumari. We’d driven the two cars across snow-covered passes, across iced-up streams and traversed roads that would have challenged a 4x4.
I reminisced about that moment on the Fotu-La and ran my mind over the last few days. Staring at the three seas meeting together at Kanyakumari and the two cars innocently parked with bystanders milling around, each of us felt a sense of achievement. The wind blew hard here too but this time it was welcome relief from the sweltering 37-degree heat.
Twelve days after that windswept sojourn on the Fotu-La we stood at staring at Vivekananda Rock. One, the best-selling car in India, the Maruti 800 and the other, the top-of-the-line Mercedes-Benz E240, a car that is 10 times costlier than its companion. The two cars chosen were very different, reflecting this diversity and representing the opposite ends of the automotive spectrum in India. This was diversity at its best, from the mountainous roads and sub-zero temperatures in the north to the tropical flatlands down south.
Two cars, four people, and a land called India. Started from Khardung La, the highest road in the world. A drive from the northernmost point of India crossing hostile, snow-covered mountain passes, through the plains, to end at Kanyakumari, the southernmost point, where the Indian Ocean mingles with the Bay of Bengal on the east and the Arabian Sea on the west. This was the very first leg of our Kargil to Kanyakumari (K2K) drive. All of us had more or less the same thought running through our minds: “What on earth are we doing here?” This was the Fotu-La Pass, the highest point on the Kargil to Leh road. The temperature read minus seven degrees and the only way to escape the cold blast was to hide behind the seven-foot-tall signstone that said ‘Fotu La, 4091m’. The wind was blowing hard enough to heave all of us away into the deep barren valley as we precariously took measured steps to keep movements within our control. So grab a coffee, sit back, and relive K2K with us. The peculiar choice of cars added even more colour to this epic drive. The route might be on every adventurer's list today but, back then, it was almost a journey of exploration, one that left us wide-eyed and had us witness and experience the incredible diversity of India. The feature? ‘K2K’ - Kargil to Kanyakumari by road.
#As i walk these broken roads originally published series
We’ve dived into our big library of classics and in this second edition of the Autocar Rewind series we’re taking you all back to 2001. Coronavirus has ground the world to a halt but we at Autocar India promise to keep the content going.
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