I love travelling,,, Religious places is my favourite,, specially The Holy Shrine of Vaishno Devi. I have been going there since I was a child.. I met some people in the last visit whom I dont know but cant forget. These words are a way to salute them...
We (me and my husband) started our journey from Katra by evening , there was a little bit of drizzling. We took raincoats for safer side. When we crossed Ardhkumari after having dinner, it was a storm like condition but we could not stop.. we were wet and the temperature has dropped significantly below 4 deg C. Somehow we reached Darbar and had a great darshan. Then by midnight we had great darshan of Bhaironath too.. the real jouney began after that. As soon as we left Bhaironath we could not see anyone else on the way. We continued as there were street lights. Suddenly a light struck just a few meters away from us. and we could not see anything else. We were wet,bare footed, it was dark with no light and nothing in the sky.. suddenly we felt something on our face... and fear struck us.. it was snowfall.. The road from Bhaironath is normally slippery which was worsened by snowfall ..
For the first time in my life I realized what silence is.. what is darkness and how you can feel being bare footed in the snowfall. I seen that many times in TV,, but felt swet running through my hand at a temp below 0 degC. We started crawling and suddenly we heard some voice,,, for the first time I felt what exactly it means to be in a group.There were few people at the next shed flashing torch light.. We reached and took breath...We all stayed there till few more arrived and then we started our journey back home. It was dark and aftersome time we were something about 15-20 persons.. walking in a line as it was too dark and there were only 2 torches one in the front and one in the back.The first person would call.. Here comes the stair and its repeated everytime so caution the one coming at the back... This is my most memorable jouney.. an old man who can barely walk was asking everyone to keep walking,, a kid of 3 years walking with snow filled slippery road chearing everyone... a lady who fall almost 25 times asking everyone to be carefull....We somehow managed to reach Sanjichat,, the place was full of snow and a few of them who have never seen snow (actually they were not seeing it now also they were feeling it) started playing in it...we started from there after some elderly person scolded a gang of strangers playing in snow that we all can get frost bite and worse die in snow...Another lightening struck and left all of us blinded for another few seconds. "Jai Mata Di" everyone spoke in unison as a reply to the lightening and with new energy started off to Ardhkumari.. The journey was even horrible then,,, snowfall has stopped and heavy rainfall started.. making it impossible to walk. We all were crawling and trying to be on our feet ....
When we reached we were drenched in rain water, there was snow flakes in our hair, we can not fold our fingers and we could not feel anything in our feet.... Any how reached Ardhkumari , finally we saw some light,, generators were working in Ardhkumari. Our group split immediately.. We dont know who the other persons were,, and possibly we will never know
On our return to home,, I sat at home and thought what was that,, what relation we had,,, no thanks ,, no formalities,,,no contacts, There was no facebook, no emails, I attended many team building sessions,, but this one was the best,,, A group where everyone played their part best without a mentor or a leader. No one ever thought of it before. but it did happened..
I am writing these words to the spirit that hold everyone of us together that day,... Lets that same spirit be there in heart of everyone all the time..
I still wonder..Who were they????
A Salute to the True Human Spirit I witnessed not with my eyes,,, but with my heart......
"Jai Mata Di"
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