For 19-year-old Aishwarya Agarwal, a student of St. Francis College of Women, Kedarnath is a place she’ll never, ever visit again. Not only did she make it through one of the worst natural disasters ever, she survived robberies, bought biscuits for a thousand rupees and had a first-hand experience of how low man can stoop for profit... even from death. She saw ‘holy men’ carrying bags of cash and body parts of the dead (because they couldn’t remove jewellery from bloating bodies), how locals fought to be on rescue helicopters first and how a two-hour lunch break for officials was allowed... when hundreds stood by, stranded. For Aishwarya then, nature’s fury was nothing compared to man’s greed. This is her tale: “Our group of 14, including eight kids, were on a visit to Badrinath, Gangotri, Yamunotri and Kedarnath. Our Kedarnath plan got cancelled twice because of bad weather,” recalls Aishwarya. When the family started for Kedarnath, it did not have the slightest clue as to what was in store. “We had just carried clothes only for a day’s visit. It was a Saturday evening and all of us were drenched by the time we reached Kedarnath. “Next day, we were warned not to step out as there had been landslides and it was raining continuously. Luckily the rain stopped by afternoon and we had a good darshan of the almighty.” The group then returned to hotel rooms, all set to leave the place the next day. That night, however, would ruin all plans. Back from hell The water level was not very high but was enough to bring down a wall next to our lodge. Terrified, we had to gather in a single room. Next morning as the water level receded and we decided step out, our uncle spotted a new wall of water coming our way. “This fresh flood was so strong that it reached the second storey of the building. The lodge was toppling. I was sure that we were all going to die,” recollects Aishwarya. “After this barrage, we made a rope out of blankets and one by one made our way out of the lodge. All of us then rushed towards the temple, as everything else in the immediate vicinity had already collapsed. We decided to spend the night at the temple. When we woke up the next day, we were shocked to see bodies around us. I was sleeping all night, next to a person who had died, may be 12 hours ago, I was terrified. Bodies were all around us and we knew that we did not have a way out.” Finally, however, there was hope, as announcements of rescue ops started. Stranded pilgrims saw locals leave and decided to tag along. “We followed villagers barefoot, with them helping us every inch of the way. All was fine until we reached a river. I let two women, senior citizens, cross the river before me. When they were half way across, the water rose suddenly and washed both of them away. Two people were instantly dead. “After a while the group reached an area where helicopters were landing. But the locals then started fighting with us for the first spot in the queue and the pilot got irritated and simply left. We waited for over six hours with no sign of another chopper. Finally, we gave up and continued to search for a safer place to spend the night. “When we reached an area with tents, we found that, since morning, only one helicopter had flown in for a pick up. But we were not worried, because the tents had food to offer, and we hadn’t eaten in three days. There was Maggi and tea, which of course were not free. We bought Maggi and 40 biscuit packets for Rs 1,100. After eating, 20 of us squeezed into one small tent allotted to us. “Next morning we got to know that private helicopters had been given the charge to rescue the survivors and we waited in a queue for our turn. At around 1 pm, the former CM of Uttarakhand visited us and distributed food, and left. “To me, his visit looked more like a political gimmick than a genuine concern,” says Aishwarya. She also got the shock of her life when she saw holy men cut off fingers and other body parts of dead people to loot jewellery. As the bodies were swollen, they had to hack off entire parts to lay their hands on the jewellery. “I don’t know if they were really holy men or thugs in disguise, but that sight made me lose faith in humanity. Their bags had lots of money too... thousands, the bags were also filled with chopped body parts. I still couldn’t digest what I had seen. “And after waiting for hours we noticed that the helicopter service was still not operational. When questioned, officials blamed the government saying that they had not been provided fuel; only later did we realise that it was their lunch break. After a two-and-a- half hour break they finally made up their minds to help us. The locals then fought again, and went first. “Finally, women and children were allowed and we flew to Guptkashi, leaving the men behind. “But Guptkashi was not any better. A gang , armed with knives, looted survivors of whatever cash they had with them. They showed absolutely no mercy at all.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Jul 2013 16:42:13 +0000
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