At Chaukori, a quaint Kumaoni hamlet obscured by the towering shadows of the Nanda Devi and Nanda Kot peaks, the Audi Q7’s navigation software (and Google Maps on the smartphone) finally gave up trying to chart our journey. The end of satellite tracking legitimises this trip as an escape that began 48 hours and 450 km back in Delhi.
Stand and stare
Naturally, we pull over to the kerb, ostensibly to admire the grandeur of the Himalayan panorama, but secretly to pat ourselves on the back. And, since the opportunity to do so hardly ever comes along, to unfold the expansive road map of Uttarakhand on the Q7’s ample bonnet, and attempt to plot our route to Sarmoli village, close to 100 km away.Such moments are rare in modern automobiles, given the electronics suite and Artificial Intelligence they come equipped with.
The Q7 is an excellent example: the eight-speed gearbox has a coasting feature that disengages when you’re cruising, in the interest of frugality. The virtual cockpit, a fully digital instrument cluster, couches the driver within a smorgasbord of information
and real-time stats.
Buttons in the boot raise and lower the third row of seats; a 23-speaker Bose sound system converts the cabin into a virtual concert hall; and music tracks can be pulled up using a touchpad with handwriting recognition or just through voice commands.
Here though, in the high reaches of the middle Himalayas, over 2,000 metres above sea level, almost dwarfed by the twin peaks looming in the distance, and at a loss to determine its location, the Q7 meekly acquiesces to instruction.
We’ve brought an executive class urban SUV to a place where it can learn some humility; no longer the towering hunk browbeating sedans on urban roads, the Q7 gingerly threads its way up the single-lane road leading up to Sarmoli—the frontier Indian village on the Indo-Nepal border, and nestled on the last green hillside facing the Panchachuli Peaks. Our revenge on the machines is complete.
What is this life…
At the turn of the century, Munsiari, the town short of Sarmoli, did not have a hotel. Infrequent visitors had to request the village pradhan for lodgings at the solitary Gram Sabha guesthouse. Today the ‘development’ narrative has changed that to an unrecognisable degree: let’s just say that travellers fleeing urban spaces need to go just that little bit further. Thankfully, that refuge of idyll is just a 20-minute (albeit precipitous) drive away. Perched on the hillside above Munsiari lies Sarmoli village—a quiet universe of cooking fires, mud houses and zero garbage, where time and space lazily slide into each other.
There is no ugly construction in spite of the influx of tourists and, with the support of an NGO, the village women have set up comfortable lodgings in their homes for visitors. Youngsters from the village, now trained as trekking guides, are happy to take you around the village’s myriad trails. On one such walk, just before the onset of summer, with the rhododendrons streaking the entire mountainside red against the snowy-white mountains, we’re presented with a spectacle that in one instant, wipes clean the accumulated grime of the stressors of city life. A few years back, a photography workshop and crowdsourcing of used smartphones led to the village’s first interaction with the digital world at large: today, the instagram handle, @VoicesofMunsiari, has put Sarmoli on the map. In such a milieu, our ride’s evolved sensibilities turned out to be a saving grace; the Q7, discreet, silent, sophisticated is anything but outlandish. It’s big for sure, but the overriding impression whether you’re driving, or looking from the outside, is one of sophistication rather than brutishness. Even its pathbreaking tech—Pre Sense—that uses a multitude of cameras and sensors to constantly monitor the road (and the driver), isn’t in your face, and works in the background. It’s certainly not a thuggish off-roader, but when confronted with an unavoidable stretch of rough and tumble around Sarmoli, it displayed a surprising enthusiasm to ditch the suit and roll up its sleeves. On the way back, it snowed, and the electronic wizardry on the car allowed us to navigate our way safely back on slick roads with sheer drops at every bend. The machine had made its point. Subtly, and convincingly.
