Oof!! too much rain!!

After the sultry , oppressive and sweltering Summer we always welcome the rains. Rainy season brings relief and energises  our spirits. The monotony of hot summer  dust storms is broken which is very comforting. This year the rains came much ahead of the normal Meteorological  Department  prediction .  Even though for the ordinary humans, it was a deliverance from the scorching heat, it was was dooms day for several thousands  and thousands  of people!! The fury unleashed by  the rains in Uttarakhand was  so severe that  thousands of people became the victims of  this violent turbulation unleashed by  floods triggered by unprecedented and calamitous  rains of such a vast scale never witnessed before.(After all how much rain is good enough? Is there no limit?)According to estimates given by various Newspapers more than  two thousand villages have been partially or completely wiped out in Rudraprayag, Chomili and Uttarkashi . The Government and  other agencies have formed disaster management committees  for rescuing the people and for providing food, medicines and other basic necessities for the people trapped in various pockets. They are dropping  items of basic requirements for the the stranded ones.
    The people who have managed to come back are relating heart rending  stories through which they have managed to reach back. with fear and trauma writ large on their faces. Their tales of woe  will even melt a stone. I would like to share a real incident experienced by a family known to us. They had reached Kedarnath before the havoc struck. They were staying in a hotel. A night before the sordid  event , they were  chatting and enjoying  after dinner. Suddenly one of them felt as if there was a tremor. At first they all laughed it away but when he insisted that he actually felt the room  shaking, they  went out of the room. They were seven of them. (Husband, wife, their three children ,their father and his sister) All seven of them went and sat on the  top of a hill just near the hotel. All of them were in a merry making mood.  Suddenly  there was a deafening thunder and lightning. Very heavy rain started lashing the mountains .The Man who was narrating this  incident suddenly felt choked  when he was describing  what they saw the next moment . The whole hotel building  from where they had come out only a few minutes before collapsed like a   pack of cards. Within seconds they saw that the car parking area  turned into a  vast open sea of  gushing flood.None of the  persons who were in the hotel  survived, including their cars and drivers! The whole night they remained there . Flabbergasted, shocked ,despaired , nonplussed and confused  they spent the night on that hill top. Next morning they found vast areas  wiped out by  avalanches and deluges. Horror struck they wondered what was happening. What was it, a delusion or an illusion!!No pavement or road was visible. They could not even make out from which direction they had come from.  They sighted a dog and started moving behind  it. At least two to three days they walked to no where.  They saw a a lonely horse eating leaves from a tree. They  presumed that the leaves were not poisonous and ate those leaves.  The old man fainted . He was a diabetic and due to hunger  he collapsed.  The muddy water  mixed with the leaves rubbed on the stony mountain was given to him three or four times, before he regained consciousness. After moving ahead some distance they saw a helicopter. It was a God send. They  screamed and waved towards the helicopter., which dropped packets of biscuits with a map showing the directions  of the escape route!! After walking for another long hours they reached a road.From the road they were picked up by an army jeep , which left them at the station. This man, is a millionaire, a timber merchant, owner of timber estates in India and abroad. They are all in a hospital recovering from the traumatic conditions  which they experienced in the last few days. After hearing  the mishaps of this family, I could not sleep last night. This true incident seems to be a fictional story. Imagine how many more people would have  suffered such shocks or even worse !!
 We must contribute  our might to  the  relief, rehabilitation and  reconstruction  of  millions  of those who are the victims of this disastrous natural calamity.