SIZE MATTERS?

The Skoda Karoq has finally made its way to India. Was it worth the long wait?

- AATISH MISHRA

IT WAS A DAMP, CHILLY MORNING WHEN I CLIMBED into the driver’s seat of the Skoda Karoq. Up here in the hills outside Pune, the temperature is a few degrees lower than in the city and with Cyclone Nisarga brewing off the western coast of India not too far away, the wind whipping at us wasn’t making the outdoors any more welcoming. Come to think of it, the weather wasn’t too different from the last time I drove the Skoda Karoq — a year ago, almost to the day — in the Czech Republic. Gloomy. Rainy. Cold. The kind of weather where you leave the photography to the pros, and sit tight inside the climate-controlled cabin. The ‘Gram can wait.

A year ago seems like a lifetime, to be honest. Back then we were travelling halfway across the world to drive a new car, and now I need permission to take my scooter to the corner store. The world is different place. We don’t step out of the house without face-condoms, have discovered a (healthy) fascination for alcohol we can’t drink, and coughing will get you ostracised more than telling people you fondle goats. The car industry is vastly different too. Who knew the VW Group would give up on diesels entirely in India and make this huge push with TSI engines. When presented with a fleet of Karoqs in Prague, I dived for the keys of the diesel, feeling half bad for the journalists who drove the petrol and had to tell their editors they got a story that was only semi-relevant. I was convinced that just like the Kodiaq, only the TDI would make it to our shores. Looking back now, what a fool was I.