Lucknow :

It was her passion and the desire to make a name for herself while pursuing it that 27-year-old Vartika Jain Srivastava put her motorbike in full throttle, felt the wind in her hair, meandered through rough roads and became the ‘first woman biker’ to reach the highest lake in the country, Tsa Lhamo, also called the Cholamu lake, in North Sikkim.

For her feat, the young woman has booked herself a place in the Limca Book of Records. While she made the trip between May 3-13, 2016, it was on Friday that the Limca book certified her national record.

As she covered over 2,616 kilometre from Lucknow to the lake situated at a height of 5,330 metre (17,490 feet) in less than 10 days, Vartika was accompanied by three close companions. Her husband Ambar, their friend Atul Ghosh and Vartika’s younger brother Pratyaksh, all of whom were also featured as the first group to reach the highest lake on a continuous bike journey in Asia Book of Records and India Book of Records. Additionally Pratyaksh, at 20, became the youngest male rider for the same in the two books.

“It took me three months to get permission for the lake which is under the Army and cannot be accessed by civilians otherwise. Once I made it to the lake, the view was mesmerising. The water is in shades of green, blue and even purple with frozen edges, ice-capped mountains on one end and clean sand spread over acres on the other. The oxygen levels are low so we had to be quick,” she said.

Recalling the most difficult part of the journey, Vartika said, “Lachen is about 55 kilometre from the lake but it took us almost five to six hours to get there because of the bad roads. The end made it worth it all.” Starting as a rider only in 2007 when her husband, who was a friend back then, pushed her to learn riding, Vartika hasn’t looked back. She was the winner in the women’s open motocross category in Lucknow first motorsports contest held in April, 2016. She has also been featured in the Asia as well as India books of record.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Lucknow News> Lucknow Girl / by Yusra Husain, TNN / January 28th, 2017