Remember how it feels when you’re on a roller-coaster and it chugs up to the highest point, preparing to dip? Sitting inside this bright red Thar, that’s how I feel. It’s at an incline of 50 degrees, but the good news in this case is that the controls are in my hand.
The vehicle has wheezed its way up a mound of sand, its wheels ferreting out sand in the bargain. “Go, go. Keep the vehicle in line with the slope,” Lordson Jacob, my instructor calmly tells me. 25 minutes later, having made my way up and down a treacherous terrain, I emerge out of the vehicle looking like I’ve been dragged through the bushes. There’s sand on my face, hair and hands, some in my mouth too, my white top looks off white and and my black jeans are almost brown with mud. The only thing intact is a victorious smile.
We are 35 participants (men, women and children) at the off-roading event organised by Terratigers at the Palar river bed over the weekend. Four of the participants are from Bengaluru, one of them flew in for the day just to take part in the event. With hats on and slathered in sunscreen, everybody gets to work, starting with deflating their vehicle tyres to 20 psi and engaging the 4WD.
Soon, 31 vehicles crawl around the sandy, rocky terrain like ants on a candy. There are Mahindra Thars and Jeeps, Ford Endeavours, Force Gurkhas, Toyota Fortuners, and ISUZU V-Crosses. “14 of the vehicles belong to the organisers and have been modified. We’ve upgraded the suspensions, changed the gear to give it more torque and upgraded to new generation steering,” explains Arkaprava Datta of Terratigers.
It’s a mix of newbies and seasoned drivers and everyone gets an opportunity to drive, make mistakes and learn from them. “The most common error is while off camber driving, people tend to climb at an angle. When the vehicle is off camber, instead of driving into the slope, they try driving up the slope,” says Datta, as he goes about checking on people’s techniques, along with his team. “Offroading is a skill anyone can pick up. But one needs to keep practising. If they stop, they lose the skill,” he adds.
Other than driving on loose sand, the vehicles are also made to climb up a 15-foot-tall boulder. “Don’t throttle, just crawl,” instructs one of the marshals, as a Gurkha successfully heaves its way up the rock, despite sliding back numerous times. “It’s okay to get stuck,” says Datta, it’s a part of learning, “We always have a full recovery set-up.”
And as the convoy of 4x4s moves through narrow streets winding through villages and farmlands growing watermelons, the locals come out to wave and look on in awe, as do wide-eyed bulls who take a break from their day in the farms. It’s time for us to wind up too, and so we do, amidst high fives and plans to reconvene soon for yet another episode of dune bashing.
