Miracles of Life

“Post a picture of your mother in our WhatsApp group. Am sure someone must have seen your mother!” Ritu said.

I disconnected the call as I was petrified.

My phone rang again. It was my brother, he asked very happily, “Did you both reach the hotel? How was the darshan?”.

I replied in a very subtle voice, trying my best to sound calm and composed, “Yes, we have reached the hotel. Rooms are getting allotted. Will call you later.”

My brother said, “Okay, let me talk to mom for a minute”.

I tried my best to sound casual and replied, “Mom is talking to others. I will call you back once we get into the room”.

He said “okay” and hung up the call.

Little did he know that I was not able to trace our mother!

My legs trembled with fear. I quickly grabbed a chair near me and sat on it. All I could do was look at the waterfall of Doodh Ganga flowing between the mountains, behind the mountains, the sun was going down, and the cold breeze made my hands numb.

Doodh Ganga

Outside, the clouds were swallowing the huge mountains and inside, negative thoughts were overpowering my mind. Mountains were hardly visible.

I quickly conjured up my mind and said to myself, “No, this can’t happen to me!” Tears filled in my eyes. I once again looked at the waterfall and screamed, “O Lord Shiva! I want my mother back. You can’t do this to me. Do you hear me!” and I closed my eyes.

Within a fraction of a second, the flashback of what happened sometime back played like a movie theatre in my mind.

The flashback:

I had come to Kedarnath in a group troupe, my mother had accompanied me. My mother, Aarti, Ritu, Latika and myself were standing in a queue which was quite long, to get a darshan at Kedarnath temple. Aarti tactfully entered the other small queue where people were about to enter the temple. She softly waved her hand and whispered “Ask your mom to come and join this queue with me”. I quickly understood what she meant and followed what she advised. Mom went to Aarti.

Gradually, with time the crowd increased. My mother waved her hands to me and I understood that she wanted me to join her. Unfortunately, one of the pilgrims standing behind her noticed the ongoing scene and called up the guards. Soon, one of the guards came, whistled loudly from his small whistle and said “no trespassing the line, please!” and I remained where I was.

After some time, my mother was able to do the darshan smoothly, and it made me very happy.

Kedarnath Temple

Latika said, “Let’s take ‘Prasad’ and talk to a pandit and see what can be done”. Ritu and I agreed to it.

Then my cell phone rang, I said “Hello”, on the other side was my sister-in-law.

In a panicky trembling voice, she asked “Are you both okay?”.

I replied, “yes, we are fine. Why, what happened?”.

She was relieved yet she was worried and said “we just saw on the news channel that the weather has drastically changed at Joshimath. Be very careful”.

I tried my best to calm her down and quickly made a video call showing them that the weather was bright and sunny at Kedarnath. My brother barged into the video call and said “okay, take good care of mom and yourself, and enjoy the trip”.

I smiled and replied “yes, we will. Don’t worry we are safe and sound” and disconnected the call.

Though the weather was good, a sudden fear cropped in my mind as I remembered the scenes of the movie ‘Kedarnath’, which depicted the devastating cloudburst that had occurred in 2013 at Kedarnath. It gave me shrill because we were at Kedarnath too. Later, I smiled at myself thinking about it.

Kedarnath darshan was like a dream come true! The spiritual energy left a high impact on us.

After the darshan, we decided to go to Bhairavnath temple which lies near the Kedarnath temple. The weather was very cold and since Kedarnath is at a height of 12,000 feet above sea level, the lack of oxygen was making it slightly difficult to breathe. To reach the Bhairavnath temple, pilgrims either have to walk the steep passage upwards or take a Pittu (Porter service). My mother had taken the Pittu and I decided to walk with Ritu, Latika and Aarti. The darshan at Bhairavnath temple was very blissful. While coming down, the Pittu who was carrying my mother came down quickly because of which I lost track of my mom’s whereabouts.

My mother at Bhairavnath Temple, Kedarnath

Feeling my pulse, Ritu and Latika calmed me down. We asked a couple of people whether they had seen an elderly woman on a Pittu this way. But it created more confusion because there were two to three ways to return to where we had started. We were in a group of 25 people, who had come down to Kedarnath and all were in different ways.

One of them suggested that “the Pittu must have dropped her at the tea stall from where he had commenced the journey towards Bhairavnath temple”, while the other suggested that “you must check at the hotel where we were planning to stay overnight at Kedarnath”. Ritu and Latika went to check at the tea stall and I came to the hotel to check if that Pittu had reached there. 

Pittu Service

The flashback ends.

The moment I opened my eyes, I once again looked at the waterfall and chanted, “O Lord Shiva! I want my mother back”, and like a child, I cried.

After some time I opened my eyes and looked towards the gate of the hotel, and there she was on the Pittu!!

A quick feeling of guilt came to my mind, “How could I even doubt Almighty? How could I even mistrust Him”?

The next spur of the moment – I apologized to ‘Lord Shiva, in my heart I was filled with gratitude. I now strongly believe that ‘the universe is always working in your favour, we fail to trust them, surrender them.

Miracles do happen, if only you believe in them!

*****

This is not a story. This is based on a true incident.

Sweta Gupta