My swift tryst with cheela

This independence day, I was’nt flying kites in Delhi rather I was flying high in the shivalik ranges. I had just reached haridwar a day earlier to visit my sister along with my first cousins, six of us. It had rained heavily on 14th, but that had’nt dampened our spirits and it had been a day well utilized by our gang in the ganges city. In the morning we went to local market near har ki pori, afternoon we visited the Mansa devi temple, and evening we visitied some other temples decorated beautifully on the occasion of Janamashthmi, and couple of hours of chit chatting after returning back home. Not to mention 2.5 hours of waiting in mansa devi temple compound for rain to stop on our way down. All inclusive, we hit the bed around 1 at night.

On 15th august I woke up early around 6:30 and had a short trip to BHEL, Ranipur in haridwar with my jiju and elder brother. We saw the independence day parade organized by group of schools located in BHEL campus, including my nephews school DPS. The parade was organized in a big circular ground surrounded with hills covered with trees.

It looked much like the playground where Harry potter played a quidditch match. There were steps along the circumference for audience to sit. A particular section of steps was well decorated with flowers and tricolour and all the chief guests were seated there. Flag hoisting had already taken place and although there was a slight drizzle; students were ready to start the parade. I wanted to spend more time there but we headed over further to Sidcul industrial area in hardiwar for business reasons.
By the time we reached back home plans had been made to visit Rishikesh. After having our breakfast six of us and my niece kicked off for rishikesh around 1pm. Its just an hour ride from Haridwar, but because of the heavy rains the previous day the usual route to rishikesh was jammed. Momentarily we thought of returning, then we asked a traffic constable for an alternate route and he directed us towards another road to rishikesh via Rajaji National Park or locally known in haridwar as Cheela. I had only heard about Cheela once from jiju but my elder brother had been there. He had apprehensions about the route related to land slides and wild animals but we decided to march on. The prospects of seeing wild animals seemed very thrilling to us. There were hardly any vehicles on that route which planted even more doubts in our mind. Anyways, we headed forward. The weather was cloudy and we were enjoying the scenic beauty on the way. The road was running parallel to river ganga with lush green surroundings

We were talking about our chances to catch a glimpse of a deer, or probably an elephant on the way. We had been driving just 4 kms on that route and we were already in high spirits discussing about the adventure sports activities like river rafting, trekking etc that we could do in rishikesh.
When suddenly, Robinson crusoe inside us took a back seat. There was no road ahead of us. Around 15 yards of road stretch was completely submerged in water flowing with a strong current. We were awestruck. All of us just gazing at the strong water current. I could see all the aspirations of adventure sports vanishing. It was terrifying but awesome. After a minute or so, my elder brother told me that the ganga water might have been diverted through this channel because of heavy rain.

I’m adventurous but not audacious. Moreover, I could not afford any heroics then, I had my little cousins with me. We decided to wait a while. After some time we saw a scorpio coming over from other side, it paused for a while and then crossed over without any trouble. But that’s a pretty heavy vehicle as compared to santro, I thought to myself. We were still unsure when a group of locals came in maruti 800 and crossed over without any concern. That gave us a lot of heart. We all stepped back into the car, chanted JAI MATA DI loudly and crossed over.

I must confess those four seconds were pretty un-nerving but in a strange kind of way spiritual too. I was’nt thinking of anything else but god during those four seconds.
Only after we had covered a couple of kms that I asked if anyone had taken a picture of that. Four mobiles with camera and a digicam too but not a single picture clicked. We were’nt thinking of anything else but to cross over at that time. But we were not to be disappointed as we had something even better or should I say worse waiting for us. After a km or so while paying the toll tax I asked a local if the road ahead was clear. With a very sarcastic grin he said, “haan sahib, pehle jaise hi ek aur jagah hain bas ab”. That was’nt good news. We decided that if we were to find any other problem on our way we’ll just spend a couple of hrs in Cheela itself and head off backwards. After 15 mins of drive we were again in somewhat similar situation. This time however, the submerged part was much longer but water current a little lesser. Nevertheless, it was scary. We halted for a second and then chanting JAI MATA DI for next ten seconds we crossed over. Afterwards, I did take couple of pictures.

Even though we didn’t see any deer or an elephant, nor did we do river rafting in rishikesh but that was more than the share of adventure we expected that day. Rest of the journey was smooth, we saw lakshman jhula in rishikesh and returned back to haridwar safely from usual route :)
During this independence day I got freedom from some of my fears. Next time though, I would definitely like to explore cheela more and experience more chills.