Archana Sardana, 44
Scuba Diving Instructor & Sky Diver
Unlike other mothers of teenagers, Archana Sardana at 40 was not content just tending to family matters and caring for domestic chores. The naval officer’s wife decided that her interest lay in romancing
the elements: the blue sky and emerald waters of the sea, both of which gave a new dimension to her life.
Now, four years later, Archana is a full-fledged scuba diving instructor and the first Indian woman to become a BASE (Building Aerial Span Earth) jumper.
A budding para-glider, she has done 335 skydives and multiple BASE jumps all over the globe and did India proud by unfurling the tricolour at a depth of 30 metres in the ocean, off the Andamans’ Neil Island, setting a new record.
Apart from marking her name in the Limca Book of Records 2011, she also performed a ‘free fall’ skydive from a height of 13,500 feet, a BASE jump from a 400-foot high bridge in Utah in the US and also from the KL Towers in Malaysia holding the national flag.
Born into a business family and spending her childhood in the Kashmir valley, Archana was married at 23 to Rajeev Sardana, a submariner in the Indian Navy. Her first encounter with adventure came when she participated in a 42km walkathon event in Visakhapatnam, a few years after marriage. “This event completely changed my attitude and opened the gate for me to venture into outdoor sports,” says Archana, who is recovering from an injury sustained in a para-gliding training session in Himachal Pradesh.
She attributes her achievements to the support of her husband. Starting off as a mountaineer, she took to BASE jumping, a sport which originated from skydiving. Before attempting her first BASE jump in 2007, Archana had done over 200 sky jumps.
She went to the US to hone her skydiving skills, which almost ended in disaster when her parachute failed to open during a jump in Arizona, the US. Similarly, in Malaysia, she sustained injuries during a BASE jump, leading to a short break in her training. But these setbacks did not dampen her spirit.
“When I decided to take up scuba diving, my husband was not even a trained swimmer. But his naval experience helped me overcome the fear of water. Today, I am a professional scuba diving instructor,” Archana says with pride.
Based in Greater Noida, she runs her own scuba diving academy in Delhi and travels around the country giving lessons in scuba diving and sky diving. Various colleges in the National Capital Region, offering adventure courses, have tied up with her.
Sons—Pranav and Ayush—studying in Class XII and X respectively are not overshadowed by the achievements of their mother; they have created their own national records and are keen scuba divers, ice hockey players and unicyclists.
Archana is an adrenaline junkie, who dreams of doing a sky dive off Mount Everest some day and champions the cause of equal opportunities for women.