Archana Sardana is a navy wife and a mother to two boys. She is also India’s first BASE jumper (jumping off cliffs with sky diving equipment – not to be confused with bungee jumping), with many sky diving laurels in her kitty. In the midst of all this, she has also managed to master scuba diving and offers diving lessons. She has unfurled the Indian flag at a depth of 30 metres, underwater. She also unfurled the tricolour in Malaysia, when she jumped off the Petronas Towers. Looking at this record, anybody would think she was born with a parachute strapped to her back.
But Archana surprisingly, only took to adventure sports after her marriage to a naval officer. Born in Jammu, the youngest of four kids in a typical north-Indian business family, of building contractors and transporters, women in Archana’s family did not work and in her own words, “marriage is the only landmark in life before having kids”.
Marriage was her making
But marriage to a naval officer changed her life. A 42-km walkathon, which she participated along with her husband just to see how tough it would be, got her hooked on to adrenaline rush experiences. During her honeymoon in Darjeeling, she decided to take the interest one step further, by enrolling in a mountaineering course.
“Till the time of my marriage to an Indian Naval Submariner I had no idea about adventure. Since then it has been a non-stop roller coaster ride,” she said, listing it out. “Adventure course at Himalayan Mountaineering Institute; Darjeeling for a supposed honeymoon; a basic mountaineering course at Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, Uttarkashi and two kids thereafter. Since then, I have tried out many adventures from bungee jumping to parasailing to yachting. From there began a gradual progression to explore higher risks and thrills.”
A perpetual back problem which aggravated, resulting in her being bed-ridden for six months led to skydiving. “If my back had to break and I had to undergo surgery, better that I go to USA , where I can jump out of a plane and get treated on insurance,” she quipped. With limited avenues in India for skydiving, Archana had to make six trips to USA, before she could become a certified sky diver.
Scuba diving happened to Archana in her late thirties, when she took her two boys for swimming lessons. “I had the option of sitting against the wall on the benches surrounding the swimming pool with a box of cheese sandwiches and a bottle of juice, waiting for the boys to finish ! Or I could join them in learning how to swim. I chose the latter. A family trip to Andamans, after that, got me hooked to scuba diving.
An adventuress in Indian society
As an Indian woman who is into adventure sports, the reaction she gets is nothing short of astonishment. “I am India’s only civilian BASE jumper. It’s a couple of hundred times riskier than sky diving. But people don’t know what it’s all about and confuse it with bungee jumping. But it’s really not worth the effort to try and explain!” she exclaims in her abrupt manner.
This incredulousness also gets in the way when she tries to get sponsors for her dives. Sky diving is an expensive sport, which only comes easy to those, whose pockets are deeply lined.
“I have mortgaged my house, sold my jewellery, car and even taken loans to fund sky diving,” she said. “I have not sky dived in the last two years, because I don’t have the necessary funds for it. I have tried to seek sponsors from government and corporate entities, but I am always asked the same thing, ‘Madam, why do you want to jump out of airplanes? ‘. So my last trip to USA for 82 sky dives was self funded using my earnings from my scuba diving academy.”
Adventure versus family life?
“My kids are India’s youngest scuba divers, brothers duo. They play ice hockey and do UNI cycling. We never go any place where there is no activity to do.” Her daily routine has changed much though and that helps, when it comes to balancing family life. “Adventure sports are for lazy people. Sportsmen are the ones who have to train daily. How much effort does it take to jump out of an airplane or laze around on the sea bed clicking pictures of marine life?” she asks casually.
However she quips that even if she ‘puts on 25 grams of weight, the entire family goes on a diet’.
#FreedomRedefined
For Archana, freedom means ‘having the funds and ability to break barriers in the field of adventure sports, to bring Indian women at par if not better with the women of the developed countries.’
“Because when you have age, you don’t have the money. Unfortunately when you have the money your body won’t play along,” she signs off.
Image Courtesy: Archana Sardana
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