When Shakespeare spoke about “ — the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to—” he probably meant, among other things, such natural calamities as the recent downpour and floods in Uttarakhand. Living in this world, death is a constant companion, waiting to stealthily sneak upon us, lunging suddenly with fangs bared. He enacts his drama with varied settings. Fire, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, accidents, disease and epidemics, his oeuvre is vast, without borders. But still, every time he makes his appearance, he takes us by surprise. Taking on the least expected garbs, at the unlikeliest of places, death ruthlessly wields his sickle to reap his grim harvest.
Who among the thousands of people on pilgrimage in Uttarakhand would have thought that this would be the last journey of their lives? Surely none. For, as Steve Jobs said, “No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there”. The irony is that a majority of the people who died in the rain, landslips and floods were in search of a kind of mental heaven when they embarked upon their arduous, risk ridden tour, when they genuflected before the Lord of the Himalayas, when they circumambulated around his sanctum, praying to him to grant their wishes. But that was not to be.
The omniscient being exercised his omnipotence in the most callous manner. He, the protector, instead turned into the hunter. And the arena for his macabre play was his own backyard. The area around the Kedarnath temple was strewn with bodies, buried alive under the debris carried by gushing waters.
Right in front of the sanctum sanctorum, corpses lay piled up. All of them never imagined that this was to be a cloudburst of truly ‘Himalayan proportions’. In his frenzied assault, death seems to have missed out on some lucky ones, like the man who clung on to the temple bell with his feet resting on other cold, lifeless victims.
Why did the Lord have to do this? Or rather, why does he have to pluck out buds, blossoms and unripe fruits, wherever they may be? Can’t he allow the ripened, dried out, shrivelled and withered ones who have served their days to fade out on their own? Who is to answer this question?
Is it, as a recent article rather indelicately put it, nature’s way of keeping the population in check? Then what is the meaning of all those epithets ‘the ever loving, ever merciful, compassionate and forgiving Lord’?
Is this what is meant by divine grace, when ‘Ganga Mata’ literally drowned her children in her overflowing maternal love? Whatever it is, true to his reputation of being the greatest leveller, death has levelled everything in Uttarakhand’s hill shrines. And oh yes, the Lord is supposed to be unselfish. Then, pray, why has he destroyed all else except his own shrine, which still stands intact? Eternal questions that only eternity can answer!
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