It’s 5am, the rain is incessant and a convoy of 20 Mahindras (a mix of new-gen Scorpios, XUV500s, TUV300s and a NuvoSport) snake up the steep, twisting road ahead of me. The headlights look like a string of pearls on the dark, ominous neck of the mountain. We pass a green board that tells us Jammu is still 150km away; on these roads, with the rain and darkness making progress slower, that probably means another four hours of driving. Quite a stretch to drive, given that we’d left Srinagar at 11pm and haven’t stopped since.
The leader of the convoy must’ve realised the same thing because 10-15 minutes later, the radio crackles out: “Lead to convoy, the scout vehicle has informed us there’s a tea shop ahead with enough parking space and facilities to cater to us. We’ll break there, about 5km down the road, so start cutting your speed gradually. And please mind the BSF personnel by the side of the road – you probably won’t spot them until you’re almost upon them.”
As we pull up to the small tea shop that is bustling with truckers, some army personnel and members of the convoy who had reached the spot before us, the rain lets up and dawn starts to creep up on us. In the faint, magical diffused light of the wee hours, the grandeur of Kashmir valley is revealed to us, for the first time since we left the calm shores of Nigeen Lake in the state’s capital.
We are on day one of a 16-day, pan-India journey Mahindra Adventure has dubbed the Kashmir to Kanyakumari drive. The plan is to drive down the western coast of the country, with stops in each of the states on the way. Autocar India, however, is only driving from Srinagar to Amritsar, and we’re looking forward to making the most of the three days we have at hand.
