Amarnath Yatra – Planned and Executed by the Divine! – Part II
By Rekha Rajan
Carnatic Music Teacher,
Mumbai, India
A Cost Accountant by profession, a mountain trekker by passion, an avid yoga practitioner, a cultural arts performer & teacher. After holding numerous managerial positions in the corporate world, now carries on the family tradition of imparting music to students in Mumbai & other cities across the world.
Introduction by Venkat
Having recounted the piquant moments that led her to commence on the Amarnath Yatra, Rekha now narrates the way the subsequent events unfolded. Things seldom happen as planned but reading her account of Srinagar in the backdrop of the Yatra one can gauge how volatile the situations could be. Yet the courage to take things in one’s stride and adapt seem to be the best medicine. This second part of the Yatra article series is focused on the Nunwan base camp stay and the preceding incidents, covered in engaging emotion and detail. Looking forward to what’s in store in Part III.
Amarnath Yatra – Planned and Executed by the Divine! – Part II
We were to start walking from early morning of 10th July 2022, as per our permit. Since there were no direct non-stop flights to Srinagar from Mumbai, I decided to go to Delhi on 8th July evening and fly out from there to Srinagar on the planned date of 9th July. There are two routes to reach the Amarnath cave. One from the Pahalgam side, which is longer in terms of kms (43 kms) but the route is very scenic and the other one is via Baltal, which is only 16 kms to the cave however this route is steep and the facilities enroute are limited. The route from Pahalgam side is usually covered in 2.5 days and facilities for stay at designated camps in tents are available, while there are no such stay options on the Baltal route. The 2022 Yatra was to commence on 30th June 2022 and conclude on 11th August 2022.
On 5th July 2022 came the news of the Yatra being halted due to bad weather – less than a week after the Yatra had commenced. The Yatra however resumed after a day itself and we were relieved. Anna was in regular touch with his contacts in the valley about the weather and the Yatra. As per plan I reached Delhi on the evening of 8th July. The headline news that night was only about the cloud burst near the Amarnath cave and about pilgrims being stranded, injured, or washed away. My heart sank but when I talked to anna, the perennial optimist, he said that we would go as planned and take decisions as the situation demands. We anyway had sufficient time on hand as our return was booked only after ten days.
I met anna after 19 years and Manni for the first time at the Srinagar airport arrivals at 10.40am on 9th July 2022. The vehicle anna had booked was waiting but we were told that no one was permitted to go towards Pahalgam. We headed to the J&K tourism office in Kothi Bagh, Srinagar to get the correct information about the Yatra and situation after the cloud burst. As we moved out of the airport I was surprised to see the presence of armed personnel from Indian army every 500 mtrs. Anna told me that post the removal of article 370 from Jammu & Kashmir, Srinagar was still like a protected fortress. At the tourism office we got information that the Yatra was currently halted as the search for people washed away was still underway. They also advised us to go to a place known as Pantha chowk, where they said we can get further updates including the required RFID (Radio Frequency Identification tags) for the Yatra.
We got the RFID batches by 12:30pm at the Pantha chowk camp in Srinagar and after anna spoke to some police personnel there, we got permission to go to Pahalgam where the Nunwan base camp was there. Here the pilgrims from the 8th were stranded, waiting for the Yatra to restart. The ride to Pahalgam was so scenic. We stopped for lunch around 2:30 pm at a restaurant and had typical pahadi food. We then stopped at a store to buy saffron. We had some amazing Kahwa there. While I had no plans to buy anything, seeing Manni who knew exactly what one gets best there, I bought all that Manni did & more. So we had two shopping bags with saffron, badam, walnuts & in mine a bottle of honey too.
Around 4:45 pm we reached the Nunwan camp. We had to stop our vehicle a distance away from the Nunwan camp as no private vehicles were allowed beyond that point. While anna and manni had come with segregated bags viz bags with stuff only for Yatra and one for the rest of the trip, I had everything in one big bag. So I had to very hurriedly segregate stuff in the boot of our vehicle, Innova and since the security personnel were literally breathing down my neck, in the process I left behind a lot of important stuff like torch too!! I was very upset with this hurried activity which I had initially understood would be done with time on hand. Our vehicle then returned to Srinagar with our suitcases. As per plan the vehicle was to come to Baltal which is the route we were to return as per plan after the darshan at Amarnath.
We then lugged our stuff and walked the distance to the Nunwan camp where we joined the long line for entry. After about 10-15 minutes some folks told us that there was a separate line for ladies, so manni and I went ahead while anna continued to stand in the gents line. There were only a handful of ladies but still no one was moving ahead. On enquiring we came to know that the luggage scanner machine had konked off and they were trying to fix the same. After another 10-15 minutes the scanner chimed back to life and people started loading their luggage for scanning. We did the same and went in for physical scanning by women police personnel. After answering their questions and opening and showing them the items we had with batteries. We entered the camp. We saw anna was still far behind in the line. While I stood guard with our bags manni went and enquired about the accommodation in tents and paid the money for tent allotment.
By the time manni came back with the tent details, anna also came in. We then went searching for the tent number. While manni said that a person had taken her and shown the tent allotted to us, we could not find tent number 32!! I went searching separately too and noticed that a lot of tents were empty. No numbers were particularly displayed and in some tents multiple numbers were written. So we decided to just get into a good tent, which had electricity connection – not all tents had that provision. Each tent was a ten man tent, so we knew more people will join. It was already nearing 7pm by the time we settled in the tent. We then informed our families about our whereabouts. While my Vodafone connection worked in Srinagar, beyond that there were no signals. Both anna & manni’s Airtel was working. So I informed Rajan from their phones. The tent had a lot of quilts (razai), though they all felt damp, maybe due to the heavy moisture in the air, thanks to the rains. We had our sleeping bags so we spread them on top of the quilts. Our places were fixed; anna closest to the tent entrance followed by manni & I beside Manni – all of us side by side.
The first thing we did after settling in, was to locate the washrooms. The one closest to our tent was a permanent brick structure. They were also clean with ample running water and flush tanks. All of them were the Indian style toilets. During the course of locating the washrooms, we noticed that a lot of tents were empty. So we decided that if anyone came enquiring as to how many of us were in our tent we would simply say 10. We all were tired after the long day so we decided to have an early dinner and retire for the day. We headed to the food part of the camp. It was amazing – so many eateries (Bhandara’s) which were serving nutritious, healthy and clean food, water and hot and cold beverages , and all this totally free !!!!!! We had a sumptuous meal & after getting drinking water in our bottles headed back to the tent. By 9pm we all were fast asleep.
To be continued…
By Rekha Rajan
Carnatic Music Teacher,
Mumbai, India