It was a close shave for Nizamabad’s Shishir Saraswathi Raj, a 24-year-old doctor who was on a holiday for hiking in Kasol, close to Kullu in Himachal Pradesh, which witnessed floods and landslides.
For Dr. Shishir, who was a part of the 10-member group of friends, it was a harrowing experience from July 7 to 11, being shut away from the rest of the world for want of power and obviously any communication facility.
He was a scary witness to roads being cut off, buildings and temples being swept away by the landslides, as his team had to abandon the hiking trip after a few hours into the Himalayan ranges.
“I have seen such a massive scale of destruction on TV so many times. But being there right in the midst of all that was life-threatening indeed. Yes, I have learnt the lesson of survival the hard way,” the doctor said in a chat with The Hindu after his arrival back home on Friday.
Well, this doctor should be one of those hundreds who braved the calamity thanks to the resilience shown by local villagers. “We were not even aware of what was happening even in the next village. Fortunately, the local villagers were friendly and helpful. We are eternally grateful to them. We had wonderful hospitality and interestingly none of them were rattled by the disaster hovering all over. They made it look so routine and told us that not so long ago they didn’t even have electricity,” Dr. Shishir said.
“The only issue for us in the homestay was the big scorpions that were all over. That was scary but failed to bother the locals,” he said.
“The return journey to Chandigarh was a different kind of challenge. We had to trek with our baggage for 10 km by road, often detouring through the mountain ranges because the roads were completely cut off,” he added.
“The first call I made was to my mother (K. Sridevi, principal of Navya Bharathi Global School in Nizamabad). Her joy knew no bounds as my family was clueless about my whereabouts and were making frantic efforts by touching every individual who can be of some help,” he said.
Clearly, the young doctor’s brush with adversity can be truly symbolic of hundreds who get stranded in such calamities and also of the way the locals go out of their way to help them.
