My heart goes out to the families whose loved ones -young boys and girls of an engineering college who were grabbed by fate into a watery grave.Very sad and unfortunate that the gates of the Larji dam upstream, opened to let the impatient waters at that very dark moment surge down sweeping away in one brutal wave young lives.Young lives with a world of life and promise ahead of them.
We were in Manali in the second week of April this year, and had fallen in love with the majestic trees,mountains and rivers of the Himalayas.We had enjoyed rafting down the river Beas.
The river always rushing and tumbling,a cold grey green shade ,tasted sweet and cold when its spray hit our faces.We had loved the river and had spent a happy evening sitting on boulders handling smooth rocks and pebbles that we fished from its shallow depths.We watched squealing tourists rappelling across its narrow girth.
Somehow the recent tragedy showed us again how powerful the forces of nature are,only this time a warning would have made the children step out of the way of a rushing river,and live to talk about its beauty.
Rising in the Rohtang Pass in Himachal Pradesh ,Beas hurries down the mountains joining the Sutlej in Punjab.Sutlej joins the Chenab in Pakistan to become the Panjnad and this joins up with the Indus.
Warm temperatures melt the glaciers and the rivers swell and surge with the forces that man made dams cannot contain.They need to flow.But what a callous mistake was made that fateful day.Hope such tragedies are averted in future.There is nothing like being too careful.
My travel log contains eulogies to the Beas.Today I read them again and there is a knot of fear in my heart, that potential disaster was always hidden behind the sweet face of Vipasha, as Beas is also known in Manali.The timing was lucky for us.We reached home safely with wonderful pictures and unforgettable memories ,and terribly unlucky for these students who were near the river when the gates were opened.
We were in Manali in the second week of April this year, and had fallen in love with the majestic trees,mountains and rivers of the Himalayas.We had enjoyed rafting down the river Beas.
Somehow the recent tragedy showed us again how powerful the forces of nature are,only this time a warning would have made the children step out of the way of a rushing river,and live to talk about its beauty.
Rising in the Rohtang Pass in Himachal Pradesh ,Beas hurries down the mountains joining the Sutlej in Punjab.Sutlej joins the Chenab in Pakistan to become the Panjnad and this joins up with the Indus.
Warm temperatures melt the glaciers and the rivers swell and surge with the forces that man made dams cannot contain.They need to flow.But what a callous mistake was made that fateful day.Hope such tragedies are averted in future.There is nothing like being too careful.
My travel log contains eulogies to the Beas.Today I read them again and there is a knot of fear in my heart, that potential disaster was always hidden behind the sweet face of Vipasha, as Beas is also known in Manali.The timing was lucky for us.We reached home safely with wonderful pictures and unforgettable memories ,and terribly unlucky for these students who were near the river when the gates were opened.
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