We take the Maruti Suzuki Swift to Mawsynram, Meghalaya, the wettest place on Earth, in a quest to conquer the extreme
Story: Ravi Chandnani
Photography: Arya Arora, Ravi Chandnani, Joshua Varghese
The joy of being limitless and then conquering the extreme is a euphoric feeling and we recently experienced it first-hand when we took Maruti Suzuki’s superb hot hatch, the Swift, from the national capital to the wettest place on Earth. During our journey, we drove on the super-fast expressways of Uttar Pradesh and then on some really smooth highways in Bihar, West Bengal, and Assam before entering the enigmatic state of Meghalaya. A mesmerising experience, it became even more so since we were doing it in the Maruti Suzuki Swift. Here is how we conquered the extreme with the Swift by our side.
We kicked off our journey from Delhi, heading eastwards to Uttar Pradesh. The Maruti Suzuki Swift was excellent on the smooth roads of the capital and the comfort inside the car was phenomenal. Our drive out of Delhi was quite comfortable as the Swift has really good seats with ample overall support and a pretty amazing infotainment system that takes entertainment to the next level.
After conquering the cityscape, we and the Swift headed to the world-famous Yamuna Expressway. Here the Maruti Suzuki Swift really felt at home thanks to its phenomenal performance. In fact, the drive on the Yamuna Expressway was so swift that we covered the 200-odd km from Delhi to Agra in less than two and a half hours. The Maruti Suzuki Swift’s high-speed stability was exceptional and the power and performance of its diesel engine was something that we appreciated a lot throughout our journey.
From one fabulous expressway to another, we were now on the new Agra–Lucknow Expressway, which, just like the Yamuna Expressway, gave the Swift an opportunity to stretch its legs and munch the miles with utter comfort and ease. Having experienced the smoothness of expressways, we crossed on to some outstanding roads in Uttar Pradesh, which, frankly, took us by surprise. Here, amidst traffic, we felt truly comfortable and the Swift lived up to its name, getting us through the congestion with ease. We stopped over in Gorakhpur for the night for a much-needed kip.
Next morning, we headed to the renowned Gorakhnath Temple in the city and even here we were able to navigate the Swift through the narrow and congested streets quite effortlessly. After paying obeisance to the lord, it was time to hit the highway again and head towards West Bengal. I was mentally prepared to face some challenging roads and chaotic traffic while heading into Bihar and before reaching West Bengal, but the highway turned out to be pretty much traffic-free and its surface was quite decent. We did encounter a few stretches of broken roads, but that was nothing the Swift couldn’t handle. This ability of the popular hatch allowed us to cover almost 700 km during the day without a hitch. We covered the entire state of Bihar in a day and were happy to see that the Swift had performed exceptionally well despite the varying weather and road conditions, conveying us to West Bengal in sheer comfort.
On the third day, it was time to head to the capital city of Assam, Guwahati, and the roads again threw big challenges at us. On this particular stretch we did face considerable traffic and broken roads; however, the scenery around us more than made up for such deteriorating conditions. The hills of Assam were full of tea plantations, which made the journey even more special. The bright red Maruti Suzuki Swift looked very attractive here, the surroundings highlighting its beautiful design. By now we were very happy with the way the car was performing, although the real test was yet to come because we still had more than 300 km to go before we could reach Mawsynram.
