Hyundai Tucson & Our Search Of Spirituality | Image Gallery

1. Our journey started from Srinagar, from where we travelled further north to reach Kargil.
   

   

2. Our journey took us through the Zojila Pass, which meant driving the Tucson at an altitude of 11,649 feet on snow-covered roads. This is where the HTRAC all-wheel-drive (AWD) system with multi-terrain modes like 'Snow' was the most effective and kept us going despite the conditions becoming very challenging.

3. The temperatures at times fell as low as -12 degrees Celsius, but the heated seats and the dual-zone climate control in the Tucson kept us warm and comfortable. 

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4. There, on top of the world, we realised that spirituality is not about leaving the world behind but making it a better place and to find such a thing, we need not travel to the mountains, but simply, look around.

5. Closer to home, here in Maharashtra, we decided to travel to the Kailasa Temple, a technological gem of the Ellora caves. It is an architectural marvel which is so extraordinary that experts even today cannot accurately predict who built it, and more importantly - how it was built.

6. This three-storey high temple dedicated to Lord Shiva has been carved into a mountain. The people who built it started from the top and carved their way to the bottom. This temple has complex drainage systems, stairs, compounds, balconies and bridges which had to be planned methodically and to perfection before a single hammer was lifted. 

7. This temple is estimated to have been built between the seventh and 10th centuries. Planned, and executed in less than 18 years. And to do so - the people building it would have had to remove about 4,00,000 tonnes of stone - equivalent to a modern-day skyscraper.
   

   

8. To put this in better perspective, the weight of Burj Khalifa is about five lakh tonnes and the mass of the Statue of Unity is close to 67,000 tonnes. And the excavated stone from the temple is nowhere to be found. Experts agree that this, even with all the technology and tools available to us today, is hard to achieve.

   

9. This journey took us into the mountains and made us travel through the snow at high altitudes before getting us closer to home and back to more acceptable temperatures. Through everything, the Tucson managed to keep us comfortable and safe. 

1. On my drive, I was sitting on ventilated seats, with the aircon on and the ADAS scanning the surroundings for hazards. Cocooned in the lap of comfort. Everything is made possible with the cutting edge of technology we know today.
   

But I still can't stop thinking about the skill, technology and determination the people building the Kailasa Temple had, to carve out an entire three-storey building from a mountain. In many ways, they probably were way more advanced than we are today. But cars like the Tucson, give me hope that we are getting there, again.