Manali to Chandigarh - truth is stranger than fiction !!

"Where is snow ?" Guddu exclaimed. He is my dear brother and we all were in the narrow-gauge train from Kalka to Shimla. It was December of 1987 and we were a party of eight people to visit Shimla, Kulu and Manali. Just before we left from Calcutta, a close relative of ours reported that Shimla was having heavy snowfall and that the main priest of Shimla Kalibari had actually come down to the plains due to the heavy snow shower. So far our train was almost close to Shimla but still no sign of any snow. I remember we were mocking at the white paints on the conifers, which the forest division put on to keep a count or something, as the sign of snow. Upon our arrival in Shimla we could not find a single trace of snow. Ma got very upset with the bright sun and wanted to verify whether that priest ever existed or not.

Although there wasn't any snow at Shimla but still the cold was not ignorable. We have a habit of chatting on the dinner table long after the food is over without washing hands. That caused us immense trouble in Shimla. Long after chatting when we went to wash our hands none of the spices agreed to wash off and the severe cold water prevented us from using it for long. That was when we started using tissues to wipe off the hand, needless to mention that Ma and Dida didn't like it at all and waited eagerly for the morning to apply warm water supply from hotel. Nothing dramatic happened in the following two days we stayed in Shimla, and the Mall was not very attractive as compared to the one we used to visit in Darjeeling.

We left for Manali on day four. While we were getting close to Manali, it started to snow and we could feel that the bus-tyres had been screeching over traces of snow blocks on the road. You can understand being from the Gangetic plains of Calcutta how a trace snow can excite us and we all were indeed. We checked into Hotel Beas, which was just on the banks of river Beas ('Bipasha' in Bangla), one of the five rivers that makes Punjab the "land of five rivers" (Chenab, Jhelum, Sutlej, Beas and Ravi; the five tributaries of Indus). From our hotel rooms we can hear the gushing sound of the river flowing by. There was a bridge on the river, just beside the hotel, which you need to cross to go to Rohtang Pass, a lovely skying area in Gahrwal Himalayas. In fact, that road straight leads to Leh through one of the highest vehicular pass in world at a height of 5500m. Our plans for Rohtang Pass had a severe blow when it started to snow madly from the following evening. I witnessed the first snowfall in my life. We all went out in the snow and enjoyed the 3 feet of snow of the ground, it was an exceptional experience. We were taking pictures of anything and everything around. The snow didn't stop for about two days. It recorded the maximum snow ever in Manali and Shimla. The electricity went off after the first day, we used candles for our rooms. Thousands of tourists were stranded off in Manali as the road down to Kulu was covered with snow. The cities of Shimla and Manali were cut-off from the rest of the world for about three days and it continued to be so. These three days we spent mostly in appreciating the snowy nature but also some panic of not been able to left with our own will to go down to Kulu. According to the travel plans we had to catch the train back to Calcutta from Hardwar on January 4 and we were still stranded in Manali on December 29. Baba and Dadu were panicking a lot, I know now how it is like to be in-charge of a trip when the prospects of the plans are at stake, but back then me and my brother were not at all interested in that and wished we could hang on forever in this heavenly atmosphere. Finally, we got the good news that a convoy of cars will try to leave Manali for Kulu on 30th and we managed to be in one of the Maruti Gypsy's among the four. The driver was a ex-army man and very proficient in mountain roads with past experience of cutting the way through the snow. So our car headed the convoy. Every now and then we had to stop and cut off the snow from the road and move forward. No civic facilities had yet reached to clear the road off snow. It took us about five hours to come down to Kulu from Manali through a road which should take no more than 45 minutes in a normal day. But it was fun for us and an experience worth cherishing for life. We reached Kulu and checked into a hotel, while Baba went to enquire for the possible way to reach Hardwar in time. There was a bus leaving from Kulu next morning to Hardwar, so we should reach Hardwar on Dec 31, and stay there for three days in our flat over there and then board the train on Jan 4. To all of us it appeared to be the end of the adventure and feeling of reinstating order in the tour. But nature had something more to offer us.

The next day (December 31), we boarded the bus to Hardwar from Kulu and were enjoying a pleasant ride down the mountains to the plains of Hardwar. Suddenly the bus came to a halt. After some inspection we figured out that the driver of the bus took a shorter route to reach Mandi (a town on the way to Hardwar) early, not knowing enough that it had a damaged bridge on the way. So we were stranded once again in front of a damaged bridge with no way forward but to go back and take the usual road to Mandi. All the passengers were expecting that we have to go back, but suddenly our intelligent driver decided that the stream flowing below the bridge was not deep enough and he can see the scratches from the tyre of a truck on ice. That meant some vehicles actually had crossed the stream before. So the driver took the bus into the water hoping that the level was too shallow and we can easily reach the other side of the stream. But it did not work for us. Within a moment we found ourselves stuck in the middle of the stream with ice-cold water gushing into the bus through the main door of exit and the bus tilting slowly in one direction. "Is this the end ?" Most of us in the bus might have been thinking that at that moment. "This might be another of those accidents we often read in the newspapers and now we are in the middle of one of them."

There is a word in Bengali 'Rakhe Hari Mare Ke' meaning if GOD is in favor then everything will turn out good for you. I am not perfectly a pious person but definitely restore in GOD when in deep trouble. I think all of our prayers were answered when we got some help from the local people for the evacuation. They held the bus in its position by tying a rope to it and then carried on the evacuation through the driver's door. If you have ever travelled in Indian buses, you will understand the drivers door is pretty high up from the ground and its more than non-trivial for usual passengers, especially old people, to get out from there. But what we did not have a choice in the midst of such a disaster. Kudos to those local people who threw themselves into the ice-cold water to save the lives of many passengers who were put into a disaster by a crazy minded driver. After being evacuated through the ice-cold water and reaching the other side of the stream, we needed to change the clothes badly. We were shivering badly and could never ever had presumed about this darker consequence of the snowfall.

About an hour later, we slowly started to regain the warmth and composure back and saw the bus being pulled out of the stream. What went wrong in the calculation of the driver was that the tyre marks where from past day when it was not snowing up in the mountains, so the stream was shallow. But due to heavy snow in Manali, the snow from the mountains started melting and increased the level of the stream. This small error in judgement endangered lives of so many people. One should argue that if you are in-charge of so many people you should not be in a mood to be adventurous and take even a slightest risk. Finally the bus was pulled out and we made it to the nearest bus stand with stopping and halting every now and then. This bus could not go any farther and we have to get into some other bus. After lot of enquiry we managed to get into a bus which was going to Rishikesh, about 3 hours before Hardwar. One cannot be choosers in such situations. Since we were late entries, we could not find place next to each other in the bus. We were tired and starving, since there was no time to look for food with our priority fixed to find the immediate next connection to our destination.

But still there was one last peace in the mind that at least we were on our way back home. We all expected that enough of calamities had occured for a single trip and GOD is very gracious to put no more to us. But I think you should expect the unexpected. Just two hours from our journey this bus also stopped and the driver reported a landslide on the road and no vehicle can get beyond this point to the other side. It might take 3-4 days for the next vehicle service across this point. The only way forward was to walk up the mountainous path up to the other side of the road. There was coincidentally another bus stuck on the other side and so they can exchange their passengers if we can make it to the other side. The problem for our group was that Dida and Ma cannot travel up the hill on their feet and with these amount of luggage and no porter around its difficult for us to carry all the luggage up the mountain. There was only one way to the other side and it was not safe. We had to cross the narrow one feet wide road, the workers managed to clear up, to the other side. With the risk of sliding into the steep slope on the other side we all somehow managed to surpass this obstacle. Of course, it would not have been possible without the immense help from the workers on the road. But all of these took us time and when we reach the other end the bus already had left. May someone mention in here about some bad luck. There was only a small car on the other side, waiting for no reason that we knew, may be for us. But we were eight and that car was too small to fit only 5 at maximum. You will be amazed that how human beings can adapt in the crisis. All of us made it to fit in that small car and were on our way to Chandigarh. It was getting late in night and the driver was not ready to go beyond Chandigarh. So we decided to stop at Chandigarh and take the next bus in the morning to Hardwar.

We finally got some food in the restaurant adjacent to the Bus Stand were the car dropped us. Baba and Dadu went to search for hotel in the city. There was still a surprise waiting for us. It was the 31st night and the entire city was filled with tourist who could not make it to Shimla and Manali. So there was hardly any place in the city left to check in for the night. After about 2 hours Baba came back with the news of a possible vacancy in a Guest House. We checked in at 2 am in the morning of January 1, 1988. What a way to start a new year! Some people believe that what you do in the first day of the year reflects on the entire year. But none of us, I am sure, would have wanted to make that new year day as the model for the rest of the year to follow.

In the morning we boarded a bus to Hardwar, expecting some new adventure, but reached safely. The next two days we just slept in our flat in Hardwar, before taking the train to Calcutta.

This was a trip worth remembering throughout life. I wrote about this in our school magazine about two decades ago. Just thought about writing it again in my blog. I guess, here is another reason to believe in the statement that 'Truth is stranger than fiction' !