Spontaneity can drive a passion and when the passion is infectious and addictive, it becomes an adventure! That’s exactly what happened. One cool Autumn evening in Lucknow.
Never keep your thoughts to yourself………..or you’ll miss out on the eventual razzmatazz that emanates as a result. The five buddies that got inflicted, Shekhar, Vijay, Nisheeth, Jayant and Kiron were high on adrenalin when the thought was voiced. We don’t know who did ( God Bless him!) , but the thought of driving up to Leh, in Ladakh, from laid back Lucknow was worth a million bucks.
Licking our lamb chops at the mere mention of this heightened adventure, we chorused ‘WHEN’?.
With all thumbs up, the wait to take the trip however, was weighted. You could not drive up before May 2010 was what was apparent from the Leh road rulebook . ‘FORLORN’ was written all over but we agreed to go the day the roads are set free.
Ever prepared for a camp holiday with friends when you were in school? Or for a prom or your first date? Guess the feelings were a mixed bag but enthusiasm and excitement writ all over.
Imagine, four guys, all in their 50’s mostly on the wrong side wanted to pedal push up to 17500 feet through the most breathtaking barren terrain, interspaced with snow clad mountains, a burnt sienna landscape and beauty as untouched as the sky itself. 15 days of grueling fun, under the sun and the stars. The highest pass in the world, the highest fresh water lake, flora and fauna that beats description. Well I guess that beats imagination. So you had to be there!
Not that we needed an excuse to be together, this was reason to make it more frequent and while the adrenalin was pumping overtime, the big question was what it entails to put this all together.
We roped in a friend who at 60 years has already covered the terrain 11 times……….on a Gypsy and a trailer with his camping stuff! His description of each of his experiences and the sparkle with which he narrated them, literally gave us goose bumps!
The route up and down had two options. We chose Lucknow-Karnal-Jammu-Srinagar-Kargil-Leh and return via Sarchu-Pang-Rohtang-Manali-Chandigarh-Karnal-Lucknow.
So we need a car to get us there. Or rather an SUV. So we picked each others brains and felt that an ideal combination was to test men at 50+ and a machine that was profiled to make that work and get tested at the same time. Toyota’s Fortuner was just launched and the Toyota road show was in town. So with the help of the local dealership ( considering some of us are die hard existing Toyota users), we requested Toyota Kirloskar Motors ( TKM) to provide us a vehicle for the dare devilry. The USP of four senior CEO’s testing terrains with a made to conquer SUV was just right.
So May the 15th, 2010 was set. That’s the day the roads to the higher reaches open up. The enthusiasm and the impatience has been unbridled and we’re all set to step on the gas pedal. Leh Jayenge! Yes, that’s what it was all about.
