The Fury of a Sleeping Giant!

The modern amenities too good to resists yet given a chance then certainly will prefer to live in a place which very close to the nature sans all comfort. I was lucky that a quite a few time I had the chance to visit places of such which can be call as ‘virgin nature’. Be it a waterfront or a thick forest or  mountains all attract me equally. Unfortunately most of my journey took me to the places that only can be described as  concrete jungle. My ultimate dream was to visit Himalaya but only three years back I able to fulfill my long cherished dream. That tour was more memorable because I travelled all by myself to the Valley of Flower and Hemkund Sahib. While returning  I stopped at Badrinath for a night. Things was not good even that year, a couple of days before I started my Trekking expedition, the weather was very bad and local peoples from Haridwar warned us against the expedition but miraculously we completed our expedition with any fuss and trouble but once I returned to Kolkata weather at Himalayan state was turned very hostile and many tourist got struck. Even our tour too was delayed everyday and every point for landslides. During my journey what surprised me more was the multi-stored buildings that either situated on the hilltop or on the river bank and finally today I am not surprised to see the structures are falling in the river like a pack of cards.

Most of the tourist who travel to Uttarakhand are on pilgrimage tour to Char Dham or on a trekking expedition. The peoples who touring to upper Himalaya to Char Dham are mainly families and hardly can cope with any natural disaster that can happen anytime there but people go for trekking are better prepared for it.

Basically the Char Dham are the names of four pilgrimage places in India that are widely revered by most of the Hindus: Badrinath in north, Dwarka in west, Jagannath Puri in east, and Rameshwaram in the south. However the char dham of Himalayan state widely trevelled and was known as Chota Char Dham. The Chota Char Dham  or  'the small circuit of four abodes/seats', is an important Hindu pilgrimage circuit in the Indian Himalayas. Located in the Garhwal region of the state of Uttarakhand, the circuit consists of four sites - Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath is also one of the four destinations of the longer Char Dham from which the Chota Char Dham likely draws its name. While each of these sites is unique in its own fashion, inclusion in the Char Dham has, over time, caused them be viewed together in popular imagination and in pilgrimage practice.

The Chota Char Dham included representatives from all three major Hindu sectarian traditions, with two Shakta (goddess) sites, (Yamunotri and Gangotri), one Shaiva site (Kedarnath), and one Vaishnava site (Badrinath). Accessible until 1950s only by arduous and lengthy walking trails in hilly area with height repeatedly exceeded 4000 meters, the Chota Char Dham was regularly done by wandering ascetics and other religious professionals, and those who could afford a traveling entourage. While the individual sites and the circuit as a whole were well known to Hindus on the plains below, they were not a particularly visible aspect of yearly religious culture. After the 1962 war between India and China, accessibility to the Chota Char Dham improved, as India undertook massive road building to border area and other infrastructure investments. As pilgrims were able to travel in mini buses, jeeps and cares to nearest points of four shrines, the Chota Char Dam circuit was within the reach of people with middle income. Vehicles reach upto Badrinath temple and Gangotri,Yamunotri and Kedarnath are at a distance of 10 to 15 k.m. from nearest motorable road.

¨  Yamunotri, the source of the Yamuna River and the seat of the goddess Yamuna.   

¨  Gangotri, the source of the Ganges (River Ganga) and seat of the goddess Ganga.   

¨  Kedarnath, where a form of the Hindu god Shiva is venerated as one of the twelve jyotirling (linga of light).   

¨  Badrinath, the seat of the Hindu god Vishnu in his aspect of Badrinarayan.

!!!Man's dominion over inanimate and other living beings granted by the Creator is not absolute; it is limited by concern for the quality of life of his neighbor, including generations to come; it requires a religious respect for the integrity of creation. - Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2415!!!