Pilgrimage

It was June 15, 2013. We rode on a long bus to Kedarnath and  Badrinath,  on the northern part of India, a famous pilgrimage of Hindus. There were 35 people in the bus including old, young, men and women. They were singing religious songs, hymns and prayers. Some of them were murmuring the names of Hindu deities.

After one day’s comfortable ride on the bus, it began raining. We had full faith on the god; so that we continued our journey. The rain didn’t stop. Drizzling changed into downpour with lightening. Terror surged in us. The visibility became poorer and poorer and driving became dangerous. The situation was almost aggravated. Lightening and thundering was like a bombarding and we were like recently escaped soldiers from the war.

Soon, there appeared a heavy flood in the Ganga River. There were landslides on the way. Telephone networks were disconnected. Roads blocked. Thousands of vehicles; cars buses, motor bikes stuck on the way. A kind of hysteric cry could be heard. We could see the wobbling buses on the flow of the river. We were reciting the names of the gods. I took the booklet of hanuman chalisa and murmured “Sree guru charana saroj raja nija mana mukura sudhari…” Some of them were calling the names of Shive and Ram. 

We waited long to see the clear sky and dry roads. The raining continued for three days. Since roads were swamped away by the landslides, we had to spend all time in the bus. It was remote hill and no houses were near about. We didn’t have food and water. We shared the food brought by some intelligent senior citizens. At the mid-night, we heard the terror mixed cry. We became alert. There appeared three dark skinned full boned men. We couldn’t speak. They started asking money, jewelry and mobile phones showing pistols. Most of the people in the bus were old and were not able to defend themselves. They could only wish Rama had appeared to save the life of his followers. They robbed everything and ran away. Senior citizens were saying that it was ‘Prabhu’s Lila’ which nobody could stop.

I couldn’t tolerate the situation. As soon as they got off the bus, I, too, lurked out and followed them. When they were descending the slope, I threw the stones at them and injured two, three of them. Soon, there came other passengers. All we went in a group to chase them and returned whatever they robbed before. The injured ones were crying and begging for their life. Two boys pee in their mouth. We giggled. We forgot where we were. We spent three days and nights without food and water, though some of them drank filthy water from the nearby pond made up of the collected raindrops.

On the fourth day, a group of people in a uniform came to rescue us. They took the old people on the plane. Those who had strong bone were helped to cross the obstacle with the help of rope. We had some breads and water to make us alive. Finally, we reached to the shelter made by the Indian police to rescue pilgrimages. For the first time we knew that there were thousands of people missing. Their relatives were there in search of them.

The rescue team drove us up to Nepal boarder, Rupaidiya. There was a crowd of people. They offered us garlands as if we were the brave soldiers who were returning after the victory in a bloody war with India.