This happens most of the time at the beginning of the winters in the Pir Panjals!

By: M S. Nazki

But this was a sudden explosion in the skies! The thunderstorm was as a molten silver sky, quenching the earth as it cocooned it in black!

-‘Down in the Poonch valley the thunderstorm bequeathed a percussion of rain upon the rooftops of the houses of the people. The musical effect was in a rhythm, pleasing to the ears but the explosive skies were in a threatening mood! From the window I watched the pines sway but creaking as if the next wave would uproot them. It was going to be a cold night and it was. The lucid moon had disappeared as if it never existed, frost grew over the windows even as the blanket kept me warm. I watched the ice-crystals grow for a while, allowing my brain to be empty, content to exist and be. The morning would bring the beauty of the ice for sure, that crunch under boot and the bold greeting cold air brings. But the ferocity of mother nature was fearsome and many in my household pondered as to what would happen in the morning. But I was thinking something else and all my thoughts were concentrated on the Mughal Road. It was no premonition but a norm that people do get stuck up in the beautiful but dangerous Mughal road!’ Sure enough there were a little more than a dozen caught in the cold storage from where there was no way out for that moment’.

-‘ I knew that it’s going to be pretty tough for the people up there. It was the type of coldness that reached into my bones in Mendhar in the warmth of my home and a couple of blankets on me, but my heart was a door left wide open to the icy wind, slamming only to open again as I thought about the people stranded waiting to be rescued! I knew that they would be but the problem was as to how they would get over the whole menacing night! And the news that more snow and rain was predicted the thoughts could only get scarier! The only hope was that after a thunderstorm the day was always that much brighter and refreshed but it was not to be as the Gods of Nature were in no mood to give in!’

-‘ But as they do it over and over again the men in camouflages and the traffic cops in blue do the rescue act and mind you this was not for the first time they were doing so. They do it every time and every year and thus were on the ball yet again!’

-‘I will put in a word of caution here. Agreed that the people love to travel on this great legendary road (in ancient times it was an elephant, horses and foot soldiers track ) but the adventurers only moved in times when mother nature was smiling and swaying! But now it is not and hence they should refrain from travelling in the mountains when the skies are dark and grey! Anyway this was just a piece of travel advice after having a keener look at the weather itinerary which is getting more important by the day as the climatic changes are getting more disturbing’!

I have had a harrowing experience because once as I got stuck up there on a cold wintry night and had no place to hide as the darkness and cold icy winds slammed against our faces as we friends sat in the car huddled up guzzling down the brandy we had carried with us for warmth. It looked that nature had kept plenty of secrets in its bag as the night progressed towards the morning which was still far away. But we were a bit fortunate that there were plenty more like us sitting in the vehicles hoping in hell that some or the other rescue team would come and take us out of this freezing jam in which we had found ourselves. Sure en3ugh they arrived and we heaved a sigh of relief. It was well past midnight when we were finally in the apartment of warmth which we so direly needed especially so the women and the children.

This was quite a few years back when I first saw nature wearing a devils cloak on the Mughal road. We were introduced to it by the twilight that day and the announcement had been made by the ferocious rumbling in the skies and streaks of lightning. We knew that we would be in company of the devil soon and we were and similarly were the twelve men who got stuck on the Mughal road at Pir Ki Gali to be subsequently rescued by the teams of the Indian Army and traffic cops! This is what happening up there in the mountains yet again:

* 12 persons were rescued from Pir Ki Gali along Mughal Road by Army, police and traffic police.

* They were all shopkeepers and workers who had got stuck near Ziarat Pir Ki Gali amid snowfall.

* The Mughal road has been already closed after the snowfall but most probably these people perhaps had stayed back to mop up the season’s proceedings before coming back again as and when the road opens yet again next year.

* DTI Mughal road Mohammad Qasam confirmed the rescue operations.

I’m sure that the last line of the confession which one could read on the faces of the 12 must have been suggesting the desperate urge, we want what we want to get back home. I’m sure if one would have turned his/her eyes on them, they surely would have noticed the sweat cooled on their skin pores because that was exactly our condition when we got struck up for 13 long hours before we were thankfully rescued from the scary ordeal as the cold battered our legs, hands and feet with no warmth around. Many of those reading this piece must have travelled on this road but some would have been in the freezing mess in the mountains! Even recounting those moments is terrible! Anyway, it’s a part of life!