4th week of May-97: We reached Kedarnath from Badrinath by bus at 18.00hrs. Timings are so planned that all buses from various points of UP reach Gaurikund by evening only. So all buses at Gaurikund were standing like a train---few of them on step gradient. I looked outside from bus-window....holy river discharge was at its peak on one side and hills on the other side refusing to go back even by the measure of needle-length like Duryodhan of Mahabharat. All we got down & took shelter near Clock-room as it was also raining little. I have to search hotel-----3-rooms somehow I could get. Last room was located on wood cantilever in series just above the noisy-voluminous holy river. I looked outside the room-window......last rooms of all hotels were like this & to my surprise some of them were 3-stories. No choice.....I with my wife stayed in that room, unable to sleep whole night, 3-children enjoyed too much in this room watching river through window. No Card - ATMs - mobile in 1997, Pitthu - horses high rate & I with my sister have to manage children. Caravan started next morning(06.00hrs sharp) up the hill to cover 14-KMs stretch. Forget about people.....even on few occasions, horses went wild refusing to continue going up with abnormal loads. Deep narrow path...dirty..smelling(leaking dungs) All overtook us....& so we reached Kedarnath at 18.00hrs. Many elders fired us why I brought such a small children. No rooms at top??!! 1-old Pandit from Patliputra was constructing Dharamshala there who gave us shelter & hot hot "halwa". The agreement was that additionally I will pay him Rs3000/- after reaching Patna. Parents became adamant for taking bath before participating in evening "Kedar-Aarti" & my wife is a blind follower of her in-laws! She insisted me also to take bath at last. 4-bucket hot water managed, last-1 became viscous-snow when my turn came. Evening "Kedar- Aarti" nobody can forget in life, it was too tough to stand on temple-floor bare footed, back side of the temple was still snow-sealed. Reflecting moon-rays from snow-surface was adding beauty to surroundings. Nobody was in mood to leave temple & go to hotel. Next day early-morning, it was fearful when I watched 250-feet away area back to the temple. Very very needle equilibrium among Hills-Snow-Forest-land and dynamic holy river. Temple side inclined thick snow-hill extremely fearful. There was a Hali pad there. On and above visiting-devotees were violating all norms. All the time, we simply can not blame "Sarkar" for our acts. "Darshan" was over & we started going down. After 2-KMs of the journey, climate became hostile. That day in my life with 3-children in our team.....I realized that we people survive on this earth by the mercy of nature, technology fails to rescue often. 16-years over, watching this holocaust at "Kedarnath" in TVs, newspapers, I can guess about the predicament arised due to "cloud-burst" breaking the vertical thick snow- sheet in the presence of densely packed devotees. Our own habits are failing to retain such holy age-old "Kedar" & its equivalents. "Unfortunates" will continue to pay price. loss of precious lives are highly regretful. Need to wake-up at least now.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 04:36:57 +0000
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