A Reflection Of The Future

Long before the birth of satellite navigation and expressways, road travel was about life on the road. A road trip was an elaborate exercise, a phenomenon allowed to dictate its own terms, through a universe we all knew as the Great Indian Highway. Well, the idea of a ‘highway’, at least.

It’s all quite different today. If I were to comment from a personal perspective, this time I’m not setting off somewhere by myself, which is unlike most occasions. I have strapped someone in the passenger seat, a face so many of us grew up watching through the late nineties and early 2000s - Ramona Arena! You’ve seen her light up your television screen, thanks to her infectious energy as an MTV VJ and, surely, in all of her versatile endeavours to entertain. Somehow, the idea of tagging along on a road trip, from Pune to Goa, has appealed to her immensely, and we’re doing it in a Mahindra XUV400. First impressions: it’s a pleasant, comfortable electric SUV which has swallowed up our heavy bags rather easily.

“I like this SUV! You know, I don’t do as many road trips as I’d like to, but maybe, just maybe, this electric SUV is going to change things around for me!” exclaims Ramona just as the sun comes up alongside our southbound XUV400, behind the distant hills. We’re getting along fine, preferring a bit of quiet for that time of the morning and thanks to the XUV400’s brilliant highway mannerisms, the first 100km or so had already gone past without us noticing much of it. The silence in the cabin, however, hadn’t gone unnoticed.

Ramona decides to break the silence momentarily as she quips “For a compact SUV, it feels quite funky! It’s got so much stuff in it and this sunroof… oh, it’s my favourite!” I point out that there are more potential favourites she’s yet to discover, from the ride quality to the three driving modes - Fast, Fun and Fearless. “What’s Fearless?!” Ah, well, I should have seen that question coming from a mile away.

I chose the path of demonstration over explanation, having switched to Fearless using the tactile dashboard-mounted button, and as the XUV400 darted forward with staggering eagerness, in the process completely transforming in character, I believe her question was satisfactorily answered.

The questions, of course, didn’t end there. Ramona’s quite the car enthusiast and her curiosity seemed representative of her experiences with the highway life. So, over the next couple of hundred kilometres, we spoke about her life experiences being a VJ and an actor, and about all the cool tech the XUV400 boasts. Then there was the added peace of mind in the form of IP67-rated protection for a dustproof and waterproof battery and motor, until we mutually noted that I had, in fact, been nerding out and a swift change of subject was called for. Fortunately, she was immensely polite about it.

“It all sounds so alien to me. I mean, I remember when I was a kid, there’d be like six, seven of us packed into the back of our old little car and all we had for entertainment was each other’s hair to pull out.” Clearly, Ramona’s idea of nostalgia was rather strange. But childhood, and our memories of it, are often that way. What’s as important as nostalgia, is making new memories. And so, we slid our windows down, sang along to some evergreen pop numbers and had just the nicest time soaking in the brilliant landscape.

Having travelled a comfortable and brisk 250km so far - past the halfway point in this journey - it was also time to plug the XUV400 in for a quick recharge. Or perhaps it was just another excuse I’d been looking for, to grab an elaborate bite. As we polished off an epic breakfast, the XUV400 bounced back to a 100 per cent charge in just over an hour. This also meant that we were left to enjoy the leg of our journey, around 170km, without needing a break. The roads, recently ravaged by the monsoon, were a huge mess, but the XUV400 took it all in its stride rather sportingly.

Our perseverance through it all was soon rewarded, though, in the form of the most breathtaking scenery. Driving above the clouds, with the XUV400 silently chiselling its way through the twisty bits, and its regenerative braking feature intelligently compensating for the energy lost while scaling up the mountainside, our road trip in an electric SUV was turning out to be more than just a drive down memory lane.

Over the remainder of the journey, Ramona expertly myth-busted television programming through my formative years and also ensured that the XUV400 easily gobbled up the last 100 or so kilometres. As a bonus, choosing to do this drive in the electric XUV400 had also been pleasantly inexpensive, and we entered Goa with ample range remaining, and feeling charged up to splurge on our fun holiday. This is exactly what unfolded over the next few days that we stayed, exploring Goa at its resplendent, rain-soaked best, having found a willing, uncompromised fellow road-tripper in the form of the XUV400.