Hyundai Exter
The Hyundai Great India Drive has, for years, been a great way to learn more about our country, and to experience it. It’s been our annual reminder to look inward, to acknowledge and to celebrate what makes us - and what makes us a truly great nation. This year, it’s all about the tiger, India’s national animal.
Project Tiger completed 50 years in 2023, a factoid that can never be celebrated proportionately enough to its intent and effect. To arrange it into perspective, the tiger population in India had plummeted to an alarming 268. Five decades since, that number has risen most impressively to 3167! That’s staggering growth especially when you consider the challenges, limited not only to repopulation but to education and the sensitivity required to make this significant an impact.
The national animal of India, of course, deserved this degree of effort. As we, our group of three from CarWale, pointed our Cosmic Blue Hyundai Exter in the direction of northern Karnataka - the plan was to stay at a luxury retreat in the Dandeli forest - the question arose: why was the tiger chosen to be the national animal of India? In the land of the elephant and the cow, both of which enjoy reverential status, how did the tiger pip the two to the highest office? There must be something to it.
My friends, the nonchalant ‘PJ’ and the quintessentially Gen-Z Vaishnavi, brushed aside any possibility of a philosophical discussion on the subject, instead choosing to make claims they were certain to regret later. ‘If a tiger can live alone in the forest, we’re three fully-grown adults - surely we can do it, too?’ came an entirely boisterous proposition from one. ‘Yup! Cancel those hotel bookings. Let’s camp overnight in the forest!’. I should have seen this coming when I saw them pack a heap of camping gear into the Exter’s deep and ample boot. ‘Alright, let’s do it - but you guys do the foraging and cooking. And set up camp!’. This was a good enough arrangement for them, apparently. So be it.
By the time the sun had risen, the Exter had settled into a comfortable and energetic rhythm. It’s sprightly and responsive, and the tractability courtesy of its 1.2-litre Kappa petrol engine came in particularly handy. The NH4 was littered generously with slow-moving trucks and carving past them had become rather enjoyable rather than the tedious affair it would typically be. The first 500km of the day saw my co-occupants mostly asleep (good - they were going to need a lot of energy for our wild adventure) and they only returned to consciousness as we ventured into the fantastic ribbon of tarmac that runs through Karnataka’s impeccable forest cover. Another couple of hundred kilometres later, we were in the vicinity of Yellapur, a small town known for its honey and jaggery, intricate woodwork, and for being home to the Siddi tribe. The forest here is vast and really dense. It’s also quite unforgiving if you don’t know what you’re doing. The three of us certainly didn’t.
It was nearly dusk when we arrived at what looked like a reasonable campsite. We’d trailed off a desolate arterial road for the better part of an hour, with the Exter confidently ploughing through the muddy trail, and the patch of flat, grassy land seemed ideal enough - for whatever we were able to decipher. We could hear a stream gushing a small distance away and the Exter’s presence was most certainly comforting; we could easily just bail out and scoot for the town had anything gone wayward.
Camping in that dense forest was surreal, to say the least. Lounging beside a cackling bonfire, with mugs of hot coffee and an incredibly clear starry sky, we soaked in the cool forest air comfortably. The moonlit sky made fascinating silhouettes of the towering trees around us and, amidst banter and mildly spiced roast potatoes, our night out in the forest couldn’t have been scripted better. In a rather rapid and unexpected transition, though, everything around us began turning quite noticeably hostile. It got chilly to begin with and, with our bonfire now perishing, also intimidatingly dark. Not helping matters were the sounds of the forest. A howl here, a screech there… The fear of the unknown soon gripped us and we gave up all of our foraging plans. There was no way anyone was stepping anywhere beyond the periphery of our little campsite. Parched, starved and exhausted, we decided to rush into our tents until sleep would - hopefully - descend.
At dawn, our campsite resembled something of a small disaster site. Our water flasks were empty, some bits of camping gear we’d left outside were strewn around, and it became quite evident that someone - or something - had been here while we were asleep. We were clearly quite fortunate to have made it through to dawn; it needn’t necessarily have gone that way. The heavy morning dew had made the campsite quite slushy and, feeling grumpy and unrested, we decided to pack our belongings and head out into town. Except, none of us seemed to be able to remember the route leading outward.
In a hurry, we crammed the Exter with our worldly belongings and drove off, following our collective (and conflicting) sense of direction. There had been an unseasonal shower, evidently, and that made the trail mildly slushy. Momentum and the beauty of a crisp, peppy petrol engine - along with the Exter’s SUV configuration - still saw us power through. The Exter held composure really well and, I have to admit, I was having a fair bit of fun even as my co-occupants latched onto their fears. To be fair, my co-passengers had nothing to complain about - the Exter rides really well, has a host of creature comforts and just ample room.
The trail went on for hours - we were quite clearly lost! - but the Exter tirelessly sprinted forth and, at last, the forest cover thinned out a bit. A rapid downhill descent later, we were presented with the most magnificent view, a scene straight out of a big-production movie. A blue river wider than you could imagine, lush green mountains stretching all the way into the horizon in either direction and, there, in the middle of it all was our first sign of human life - a long suspension bridge, wide enough only for a motorcycle. Surely, we’d be able to find ourselves back into town from here.
For a breather, and out of a sense of relief, we took off for a stroll across the bridge. Introspection came all too easily - perhaps it was the vastness of our immediate surroundings or the fact that we’d emerged from a potentially life-threatening situation - and we indulged. An elaborate moment of silence was broken when Vaishnavi, now visibly lacking her indifference from the previous day, said something that would answer the question that had led us here with a poignant finality. ‘I see it all a bit differently now,’ she said. ‘It’s the toughness, the easy confidence and the will power that puts the tiger in the cat’. It was a thought that had depth and simplicity in equal measure.
The tiger isn’t revered for its speed or strength - there are creatures that can out-do it at either, or both - but for its resolve. For being a leader in the truest sense. While we’d steered clear of any tiger sightings - that was never the plan and they are best left to themselves - our adventure with the Exter had introduced us to an altogether new concept, that of the tiger within each of us. Of course, we’re far off the potential we have, but well begun is half done, right?
