Growing up in a protected household, adventure sports was not even on her mind. But she has come a long way from her childhood like in Jammu and Kashmir. Today, Archana Sardana is India’s first and only woman BASE jumper, an accomplished skydiver, mountaineer and scuba diver instructor.
B.A.S.E. jumping, is parachuting or wingsuit flying from a fixed structure or cliff. “BASE” is an acronym that stands for four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump: building, antenna, span, and Earth (cliff).
After an arranged marriage with Commander Rajiv Sardana of the Indian army, things took a turn went they went to the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling for their honeymoon. After the Adventure and Advanced Mountaineering course from there and the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, Uttarakhand, she became passionate about adventure sports. She enjoyed a thrill that made her realized that this was her calling.
But mountaineering was still very different from the rigour of BASE jumping, which is considered one of the most dangerous sports in the world. The dive is from a lower altitude and hence more extreme in its nature.
Archana faced many challenges in her journey as a BASE jumper. She says, “One of the obstacles was financial requirement. I met many people, even ministers, but nobody would provide a sponsorship. So, I sold my jewelry and mortgaged my house to raise funds. Secondly, many event organizers would see me as a competitor, would think I will steal their limelight and would not invite me. That is why most of my dives are outside India. I still never got called for events in India.”
After her training, today Archana has completed 335 skydives, multiple BASE jumps across the globe and is also the first woman master-scuba diver trainer in India. She has done her country proud by unfurling the tri-colour at a depth of 30 meters in the ocean, off the Andamans’s Neil Island, and set a new record in the process.
Apart from registering her name in the Limca Book of Records 2011, she has also performed a ‘free fall’ skydive from a height of 13,500 feet, a BASE jump from a 400-feet high bridge in Utah and also from the KL Towers in Malaysia with the national flag.
Additional, Archana is the only Indian who is a trained Instructor with the Disabled Divers International and runs her own Scuba Diving Academy in Delhi.
To anyone who wants to excel in sports or adventure, Archana says, “As important as the physical training, is the mental preparation. Your mindset and your achievement drive take you a long way on the success path.”
Her next goal is to skydive from the Mt. Everest. Through the accolades bestowed on her, she tries to fight the battle for women empowerment.
She says everyone should live their life, as there is no second chance. To all those who want to pursue adventure sports, Archana says, “It is important to come out of your comfort zone. Nothing will come to you if you keep sitting still. When you say you like something, first experience it. Without an experience, you can never know what you really like.”
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