From Noisy Mumbai to Open Skies

PEOPLE

Paragliding is an adrenaline sport that’s perfect for clearing your head. Thirty-three-year-old Sachin Pathare fell in love with it because it gave him an escape from the noisy and chaotic Indian city he calls home. Come and take to the skies with us.

7. 6. 2018

Sachin Pathare is a 33-year-old professional paragliding coach, having fallen in love with this adrenaline-fuelled discipline several years ago. In fact, he abandoned a successful software engineering career for the sport. His favourite paragliding spots are Bir, part of the Kangra district in the north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, and Kamshet. It was here that Sachin came in a ŠKODA KAROQ to make the video.

“Life in Mumbai can be tough. Traffic, pollution and endless crowds of people. Sometimes you need to get away from it all and have a break. When I am in the mountains, I am at peace – I like climbing to the best launch site, and enjoying feeling the wind wash over me,” says Sachin as he explains his passion for paragliding. “I decided to follow my dream and devoted more and more time to paragliding, practically squeezing out all other activities. There came a point where I realised that I would be able to make a living as an instructor.

The videos were filmed by director Jan Pavlacký and cameraman Petr Soukup as they were returning from their Catching Breath project, which was shot in the Himalayas. Travelling in a ŠKODA KODIAQ and ŠKODA KAROQ, the film-making duo beautifully captured the poetry of negotiating one of the world’s most extreme roads, the Leh-Manali Highway.

Paragliding is a very popular tourist activity in India’s mountains, and Kamshet, in the state of Maharashtra, is one of the most famous places. Fans of flying looking for a spot of paragliding between Pune and Mumbai choose this picturesque mountain station as it is well-known for its paragliding and high-quality aviation schools.