I was lying on
my bed indolently not wanting to move my torso even an inch away from
my cosy mattress cuddling within those warm rugs provided at our hotel
room in Manali. Ten days of my exhilarating vacation with my husband and
my four year old son drew to a closure and we had to head back to our
home in Chandigarh to get started with our mundane life.
“Nisha wake up honey! We will be late if we don’t start in an hour. Please get up. I will get Vihaan ready meanwhile” as my husband was trying relentlessly to get me up I was looking at my watch to read the time. It was 6.00 a.m. in the morning. The air was cold and bleak covered with fog all over adding to my listlessness. It would take approximately 7.5 hours by road to reach Chandigarh city from Manali but with a few pit stops for food and other things it would take almost 9 to 10 hours. My husband decided to head back home by our car in the morning as it would be a bit perilous to do a night journey especially with our little boy around while we had to surpass a large belt of hairpin bent roads on the hills which are quite steep, narrow and with scarcity for street lights.
After I got ready I did some last minute packing, checked if we had cleared all our stuffs from the room, locked the room and the three of us walked down to the dining to have our breakfast.
“Rishi I will settle the bill at the hotel desk meanwhile you load our baggages in the car.” I told my husband who carried our bags in the trolley towards the parking lot.
Finally we turned on the engine and geared towards the gate as I was bracing myself for the next 9 odd hours on the road. Vihaan dropped asleep a little later. I looked through the window staring at the mesmerising beauty of the scenic landscape and the serenity of the surroundings. The sun obscured behind the misty clouds leaving sparse visibility on the roads.
We were travelling through the Kullu hills with steep rocky walls on one side of the road and a deep gorge on the other side. I had packed some snacks for us and sufficient food products for Vihaan from our home in Chandigarh to manage the drive to and fro. We decided to have lunch in some Dhabha in Sundar Nagar in the Mandi district on our way back. I was trying hard not to doze off to help Rishi overcome the dreariness of the long drive and kept chit-chatting with him intermittently.
There were quite a large number of trucks lined ahead of our car and a few other vehicles were advancing behind us. Every vehicle was moving at snail pace. It was half past 9 a.m. Not too far from the Hanogi temple in the Mandi district on the NH21 we were travelling Rishi and I noticed a cloud of muddy smoke appearing from the rocky hills. It was not very clear as there were huge vehicles in front of us masking the view.
“Rishi did you see that smoke? What is that? Where is it coming from?” as I questioned my husband anxiously, he quite nonchalantly responded to me saying that it was nothing and asked me to remain silent as the noise might wake up our little one who was sleeping oblivious of things happening around him.
Suddenly huge boulders were collapsing from the mountain on the road into the Beas River besieging one of the trucks that stood a few yards away from our car. I was stoic as I witnessed that massive landslide that shook the mother earth, destroying a huge portion of the national highways we were travelling, leaving that truck in a battered state apparently taking away the lives of the driver and the cleaner who were seated inside.
I screamed, shrieked at the top of my voice waking up my little boy in a jolt who was petrified immensely by my wails and started crying copiously. Rishi who was also equally shuddered by that incident tried to console me and our child. I regained my composure and tried to hide the panic on my face from Vihaan and took him and embraced him providing him a sense of reassurance.
“What’s that mama?” my son asked me nervously.
“Oh baby! It’s nothing dear. It was some rocks that have fallen from the hills. Nothing to worry. Just calm down. Papa will drive us home.” I tried comforting him in a trembling voice.
The landslide lasted only for a few minutes but created a staggering havoc on the roads stranding all the vehicles on the highway on both sides of it.
“Both of you stay inside the car. I will step out and check the condition and see if we have some room on the road to sneak through our car.” Rishi instructed me and went down the road to inspect the situation.
A large crowd of people gathered near the debris to analyse how they could move their vehicles. I saw Rishi talking to a few truck drivers probably discussing the possibilities of removing our car from the catastrophe.
“Mama where has papa gone?” asked Vihaan.
“Sweetheart, daddy has gone to see how we can take the car out of this place. He will be back soon. Do you want some water to drink or anything to eat?” as I enquired my little fellow he hinted on wanting to attend the nature’s call.
I took him outside the car and walked him towards one of the hill’s corners. He was afraid after all that scene and feeling a bit coy about doing it in the public but I persuaded that there was no other option and convinced him.
After a while Rishi marched towards us. Vihaan was gobbling up some snacks that I had offered him.
“It looks like we are in a fix. It might take a long time to clear all this and provide way for the vehicles to move. One of them out there called the national highway authorities and some district authorities too. They are on their way. They will have to scrutinize the reason for this landslide and decipher the options for clearing the debris.” As Rishi spoke in a sullen tone I was gaping at him appalled.
“How long would that take Rishi?”
“Not sure. We will have to wait.” I realized that he was clueless as much as I was from that perturbed expression on his face.
Eight hours of incessant waiting surpassed as our car stood at the same point with three of us seated inside wearily. All the authorities arrived, examined the area, deployed some workers and installed huge JCB machines to clear the mess. Vihaan was getting cranky and twitchy. The noise from the excavators was irksome. Rishi and I tried to engage him to overcome the hiatus and the boredom of being stuck at one place. Food and water stock with us was also slowly running short. We were left with only 1 bottle of water for all three of us. I thought I could buy extra bottles of water at any food joint on our way to Mandi district and did not foresee the need to carry more bottles.
The anxiety within me doubled as we completed 16 hours of our waiting period. The sun came down leaving a scary darkness of uncertainty behind. The air was still and cold. The night was gloomy with minimal lights for the workers. Every traveller around were annoyed and worried about their movement forward. The silence of the hills was uncanny and haunting me throughout the night. My metabolic activities stopped. I did not feel hungry nor had the courage to attend my nature’s call in the eerie darkness outside. Vihaan could not sleep and was waking up too often disturbed with terrible nightmares. Except for some buzzing chattering noise of the travellers on the road there weren’t much activity.
The highway authorities provided a temporary relief by diverting the traffic from Chandigarh to Manali via an alternative Kamandi-Mandi route however people travelling from Manali had to stay in the same point on the road as it was not possible to move two-way traffic. Fate was really hard on us that day playing with and testing our endurance. Rishi was restless too. He stepped down the car too often to check the status of the clearance. A little later I dropped asleep unknowingly.
I opened my eyes. It was rather a bright sunny morning. I felt a sudden jerk from the car. Rishi was trying to start the engine. I woke up with a trickle of astonishment in my eyes.
“Rishi has everything cleared now? Are you starting the car?” as I asked him I looked around from the windows of our car. The passage was getting clear and I saw the trucks before us moving forward albeit slowly.
“Yes. The PWD workers joined the NHAI team last night to enable a faster clearance of the debris and regulate the traffic.” Rishi told.
His words reverberated an enormous sense of joy and relief within me. I looked at my watch. It was 7.00 a.m. We went stand still for 22 hours and finally the wait came to a stall. Vihaan was asleep. The roads were not perfect but repaired sufficient enough to restore our movement.
After almost 6 hours with immense urge to reach our home in Chandigarh, Rishi finally hit the city and drove to our residence. I sighed a great relief at the look of the facade of my apartment. Rishi parked the car and helped me carry the bags to our apartment in the third floor. Vihaan was too tired and exhausted. I opened the door, bent down and picked the newspaper and left it on the couch. Carried the bags and dropped them inside the bedroom. Rishi and Vihaan lay on the couch trying to relax after the gruelling journey. I visited the washroom, freshened up and went inside the kitchen to prepare something to eat and drink as all of us were starving.
Rishi picked up the newspaper from the couch and read the headlines on the main page.
“Chandigarh-Manali Highway Blocked After Major Landslide stranding huge traffic”
PS: On Dec 7th 2015 a major landslide occured on the National Highway 21 (NH 21) connecting Chandigarh-Manali in India. No casualities happened though the traffic was immensely affected for almost the entire day. The NHAI team restored the situation back to normal after 2 days.
Watch the video of this landslide under the following link
http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/chandigarh-manali-highway-blocked-after-major-landslide-1251944
“Nisha wake up honey! We will be late if we don’t start in an hour. Please get up. I will get Vihaan ready meanwhile” as my husband was trying relentlessly to get me up I was looking at my watch to read the time. It was 6.00 a.m. in the morning. The air was cold and bleak covered with fog all over adding to my listlessness. It would take approximately 7.5 hours by road to reach Chandigarh city from Manali but with a few pit stops for food and other things it would take almost 9 to 10 hours. My husband decided to head back home by our car in the morning as it would be a bit perilous to do a night journey especially with our little boy around while we had to surpass a large belt of hairpin bent roads on the hills which are quite steep, narrow and with scarcity for street lights.
After I got ready I did some last minute packing, checked if we had cleared all our stuffs from the room, locked the room and the three of us walked down to the dining to have our breakfast.
“Rishi I will settle the bill at the hotel desk meanwhile you load our baggages in the car.” I told my husband who carried our bags in the trolley towards the parking lot.
Finally we turned on the engine and geared towards the gate as I was bracing myself for the next 9 odd hours on the road. Vihaan dropped asleep a little later. I looked through the window staring at the mesmerising beauty of the scenic landscape and the serenity of the surroundings. The sun obscured behind the misty clouds leaving sparse visibility on the roads.
We were travelling through the Kullu hills with steep rocky walls on one side of the road and a deep gorge on the other side. I had packed some snacks for us and sufficient food products for Vihaan from our home in Chandigarh to manage the drive to and fro. We decided to have lunch in some Dhabha in Sundar Nagar in the Mandi district on our way back. I was trying hard not to doze off to help Rishi overcome the dreariness of the long drive and kept chit-chatting with him intermittently.
There were quite a large number of trucks lined ahead of our car and a few other vehicles were advancing behind us. Every vehicle was moving at snail pace. It was half past 9 a.m. Not too far from the Hanogi temple in the Mandi district on the NH21 we were travelling Rishi and I noticed a cloud of muddy smoke appearing from the rocky hills. It was not very clear as there were huge vehicles in front of us masking the view.
“Rishi did you see that smoke? What is that? Where is it coming from?” as I questioned my husband anxiously, he quite nonchalantly responded to me saying that it was nothing and asked me to remain silent as the noise might wake up our little one who was sleeping oblivious of things happening around him.
Suddenly huge boulders were collapsing from the mountain on the road into the Beas River besieging one of the trucks that stood a few yards away from our car. I was stoic as I witnessed that massive landslide that shook the mother earth, destroying a huge portion of the national highways we were travelling, leaving that truck in a battered state apparently taking away the lives of the driver and the cleaner who were seated inside.
I screamed, shrieked at the top of my voice waking up my little boy in a jolt who was petrified immensely by my wails and started crying copiously. Rishi who was also equally shuddered by that incident tried to console me and our child. I regained my composure and tried to hide the panic on my face from Vihaan and took him and embraced him providing him a sense of reassurance.
“What’s that mama?” my son asked me nervously.
“Oh baby! It’s nothing dear. It was some rocks that have fallen from the hills. Nothing to worry. Just calm down. Papa will drive us home.” I tried comforting him in a trembling voice.
The landslide lasted only for a few minutes but created a staggering havoc on the roads stranding all the vehicles on the highway on both sides of it.
“Both of you stay inside the car. I will step out and check the condition and see if we have some room on the road to sneak through our car.” Rishi instructed me and went down the road to inspect the situation.
A large crowd of people gathered near the debris to analyse how they could move their vehicles. I saw Rishi talking to a few truck drivers probably discussing the possibilities of removing our car from the catastrophe.
“Mama where has papa gone?” asked Vihaan.
“Sweetheart, daddy has gone to see how we can take the car out of this place. He will be back soon. Do you want some water to drink or anything to eat?” as I enquired my little fellow he hinted on wanting to attend the nature’s call.
I took him outside the car and walked him towards one of the hill’s corners. He was afraid after all that scene and feeling a bit coy about doing it in the public but I persuaded that there was no other option and convinced him.
After a while Rishi marched towards us. Vihaan was gobbling up some snacks that I had offered him.
“It looks like we are in a fix. It might take a long time to clear all this and provide way for the vehicles to move. One of them out there called the national highway authorities and some district authorities too. They are on their way. They will have to scrutinize the reason for this landslide and decipher the options for clearing the debris.” As Rishi spoke in a sullen tone I was gaping at him appalled.
“How long would that take Rishi?”
“Not sure. We will have to wait.” I realized that he was clueless as much as I was from that perturbed expression on his face.
Eight hours of incessant waiting surpassed as our car stood at the same point with three of us seated inside wearily. All the authorities arrived, examined the area, deployed some workers and installed huge JCB machines to clear the mess. Vihaan was getting cranky and twitchy. The noise from the excavators was irksome. Rishi and I tried to engage him to overcome the hiatus and the boredom of being stuck at one place. Food and water stock with us was also slowly running short. We were left with only 1 bottle of water for all three of us. I thought I could buy extra bottles of water at any food joint on our way to Mandi district and did not foresee the need to carry more bottles.
The anxiety within me doubled as we completed 16 hours of our waiting period. The sun came down leaving a scary darkness of uncertainty behind. The air was still and cold. The night was gloomy with minimal lights for the workers. Every traveller around were annoyed and worried about their movement forward. The silence of the hills was uncanny and haunting me throughout the night. My metabolic activities stopped. I did not feel hungry nor had the courage to attend my nature’s call in the eerie darkness outside. Vihaan could not sleep and was waking up too often disturbed with terrible nightmares. Except for some buzzing chattering noise of the travellers on the road there weren’t much activity.
The highway authorities provided a temporary relief by diverting the traffic from Chandigarh to Manali via an alternative Kamandi-Mandi route however people travelling from Manali had to stay in the same point on the road as it was not possible to move two-way traffic. Fate was really hard on us that day playing with and testing our endurance. Rishi was restless too. He stepped down the car too often to check the status of the clearance. A little later I dropped asleep unknowingly.
I opened my eyes. It was rather a bright sunny morning. I felt a sudden jerk from the car. Rishi was trying to start the engine. I woke up with a trickle of astonishment in my eyes.
“Rishi has everything cleared now? Are you starting the car?” as I asked him I looked around from the windows of our car. The passage was getting clear and I saw the trucks before us moving forward albeit slowly.
“Yes. The PWD workers joined the NHAI team last night to enable a faster clearance of the debris and regulate the traffic.” Rishi told.
His words reverberated an enormous sense of joy and relief within me. I looked at my watch. It was 7.00 a.m. We went stand still for 22 hours and finally the wait came to a stall. Vihaan was asleep. The roads were not perfect but repaired sufficient enough to restore our movement.
After almost 6 hours with immense urge to reach our home in Chandigarh, Rishi finally hit the city and drove to our residence. I sighed a great relief at the look of the facade of my apartment. Rishi parked the car and helped me carry the bags to our apartment in the third floor. Vihaan was too tired and exhausted. I opened the door, bent down and picked the newspaper and left it on the couch. Carried the bags and dropped them inside the bedroom. Rishi and Vihaan lay on the couch trying to relax after the gruelling journey. I visited the washroom, freshened up and went inside the kitchen to prepare something to eat and drink as all of us were starving.
Rishi picked up the newspaper from the couch and read the headlines on the main page.
“Chandigarh-Manali Highway Blocked After Major Landslide stranding huge traffic”
PS: On Dec 7th 2015 a major landslide occured on the National Highway 21 (NH 21) connecting Chandigarh-Manali in India. No casualities happened though the traffic was immensely affected for almost the entire day. The NHAI team restored the situation back to normal after 2 days.
Watch the video of this landslide under the following link
http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/chandigarh-manali-highway-blocked-after-major-landslide-1251944
