Soundscape

The hills of Kasauli come alive through a fantastic music festival.

You’ll have to be honest about this. If I were to ask you to list out your favorite days of the week, it’ll be the weekend, no? No matter how career-oriented, job-focused, hard-working people are, the weekend brings that much-needed pause. Since the Easter weekend was upon us, we decided to head to Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, a quaint hill station located about an hour from Chandigarh. Our journey, however, was set to begin from Delhi and our car of choice was the new Hyundai Santro, in the Diana Green paint shade that I love. Thank heavens for that, I told myself as I was handed the keys to the car.

I have to admit that I hate driving in Delhi because of its clogged roads and unruly traffic sense. And that’s where the Santro begins to make perfect sense. Its dimensions make it a cinch to cut through traffic while the sprightly, 1.1-litre Epsilon motor make easy work of overtaking.

Ours was the top spec, Asta trim, and my word, the cabin felt so upmarket from the moment I stepped in. The accents around the gear shift and around the AC vents liven up the cabin and put you in a cheery mood.

After an hour of negotiating traffic, we got on to the Delhi-Chandigarh highway. This is where I finally got a chance to stretch the Santro’s legs. On paper, 69PS may not seem as much but there’s enough power for the Santro to cruise comfortably at highway speeds.

Enroute, we stopped at Murthal to gorge on some dhaba style Aloo and Paneer Parathas. Served with a generous dollop of white butter, these parathas were polished off the plates as soon as they arrived on the table. Hunger pangs taken care of, we continued towards our destination.