Thrice In A Row

Monsoons have been bringing sodden annual death to India's mountains. Once sanctuaries of pilgrimage and peace, Indian hills are turning into burial grounds

- RAJEEV NARAYAN

"Rain doesn't always whisper poetry. Sometimes it just falls, simple and honest, reminding us of life's unspoken moments..." — EE Cummins

The first wake-up-or-die warning of nature's wrath on mankind lashed the mountainsides of Himachal Pradesh in the shape of cloudbursts, incessant thundershowers and howling winds in mid-July 2012. I read about it in my Delhi home and sighed—I had returned from Manali just the day before. Over the next few days, the rain-Gods' ran amok, fury unchecked. Entire hillsides came tumbling down, rivers broke their embankments, iron bridges were uprooted from their foundations as if made of toothpicks, and people swept into the raging waters and rushed to downhill doom in record time. A week later, the rains hit again. This time, Uttarakhand, Kerala and the Northeast weren't spared either.

A partaker of all things Bacchus at that time, I nursed a whisky and shoved my SUV into 'Drive' one late evening—it was time to take a closer look. By sunrise, I was in the hills. The pictures and visuals I had seen on social media and TV were nothing compared to the mayhem and deathliness that bespoke the silent screams of our protesting hillsides. The majestic spines of Himachal, Uttarakhand, Kerala and Northeast had creaked and collapsed under the onslaught of rain, exposing fractured systems. This was not inclement weather, but war—a raging battle against our recklessness and stoic indifference.