Someone up there must have smiled when Arvind Shukla, a senior panda at Kedarnath temple, advised his friend and my uncle-in-law Surojit Chattopadhyay: “June is a good time to visit Kedarnath. In May it’ll still be too cold, and in July it will pour.”

So, on the morning of June 8, we started for Uttarakhand, little knowing that in less than a week it would start pouring in the mountains like never before — 375 per cent more than the rainfall benchmarked for a normal monsoon in the region over four days, from June 14 to 17.

It was a strike by pony keepers and doli bearers that prevented us from reaching Kedarnath on June 14 and getting trapped in the deluge and the subsequent disaster.

This is an account of our vacation, snipped at the tail end by nature’s fury but savoured knowing how it could have gone wrong in so many more ways.

Top of the Koteshwar Temple with the Alakananda flowing through the gorge

JUNE 8: Our Kedar yatra starts from Hardwar. Pilgrims throng the temple town around this time of the year for Char Dham yatra, which means a visit to Gangotri, Yamunotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath. It is swarming with people and we have to watch the famous Har-ki-pauri Ganga arati from a distance from an overpass. What a jump in the number of tourists! In 1997, I had watched this spectacular ceremony standing barely metres away from the priests.

JUNE 9: We head for Bilwakeshwar temple, perched on a hill. The ride in a vikram, the bigger and noisier brother of autorickshaw, is quite a treat with tall trees lining the route which runs through a jungle. This ancient temple is famous as the spot where Parvati prayed for years to get Lord Shiva as her husband. From here we go to Kankhal and visit Ma Anandamayee’s ashram which is being renovated.

Ukhimath where they had to spend five days due to bad weather

Our next stop is the Daksheshwar Mahadev temple where the famed Daksha yagna of Hindu mythology is said to have been performed. This was where an uninvited Sati was humiliated by her father Daksha into self-immolation in the sacrificial fire, causing a grief-stricken Shiva to go berserk with his wife’s lifeless body on his shoulders till it was chopped to pieces by Vishnu’s sudarshan chakra. In the precincts, there are temples dedicated to the four Vedas and Dasamahavidya, the 10 forms Sati had shown of herself to Shiva when the latter was refusing to give her permission to visit her parents unescorted.

JUNE 10: From Lakshman Jhula at Rishikesh we get a wonderful bird’s eye view of rafting in the Ganges. Never an adventurous sort, I always thought that the sport was meant for those with an athletic build and spirit. But I was surprised to see people of all shapes, sizes and ages in rafting gear in queue to take on the river currents.

JUNE 11: Leaving the plains behind we start our journey up the Garhwal Himalayas. We stop to catch a glimpse of Devprayag where Alakananda and Bhagirathi rivers meet and take the name Ganga.

JUNE 12: We visit Koteshwar Mahadev Temple in Rudraprayag, which is actually a cave where a multitude of Shivalingas have got formed. Thus the name Koteshwar meaning koti or innumerable Gods. These Shivalingas are actually stalagmites that got created years ago when the gushing water of the Alakananda washed the cave floor for ages. There are so many of them that one can’t help but step on the smaller ones.

Our next destination is the confluence of the placid Mandakini and the boisterous Alakananda. We also visit the ancient Rudranath temple there.

JUNE 13: In the evening we visit the Ardhnarishwar temple. One has to look closely at the deity, depicted as half male and half female, to be able to make out the two distinct forms representing the synthesis of masculine and feminine energies of the universe (Purusha and Prakriti). The deity is the Puranic iconographic depiction of Shiva, the right half, and his consort Parvati. Beside this shrine there is the old Vishwanath Temple at Guptakashi which is similar to the one at Varanasi. “Shiva and Parvati had clandestine meetings and ostensibly had a secret wedding here. Thus, it’s called Gupt or secret Kashi,” our priest said with a twinkle in his eyes.

As we climb up the stone steps my husband exclaims: “Look at the Chaukhamba!” The setting sun has bathed the snow-capped mountain in a reddish gold hue.

While heading towards Guptakashi we stopped for tea at the Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam (GMVN) rest house at Syalsaur. The pristine settings of the GMVN cottages by the Mandakini with green rolling hills as the backdrop made us decide to stay here on our return trip.

JUNE 14: Today we are supposed to take a helicopter ride to Kedarnath, but our hearts sink on learning that the pony keepers and doli bearers have started a sit-in demonstration right on the helipad. “These people have been upset ever since their business got hit by the chopper service. This year when the authorities put a drastic ceiling on the number of ponies that could take the route, it sparked the fuse,” said an official of our helicopter service operator.

There was no way we could make it from Phata, near Guptakashi, to the shrine. Our hearts broke as we were a mere 15 minutes away from Kedar. That’s the time it takes for a helicopter sortie.

We altered our plans and decided to visit Badrinath instead. We came down to Ukhimath where Omkareshwar Temple, the winter abode of Kedarnath and Madhyamaheshwar (two of the Panch Kedars), is situated. The stone temple has ancient images and motifs of deities which appear to predate the advent of the Aryans.

JUNE 15: It had rained and the sky was overcast when we set out at 8.30am for Tunganath, the highest of the Panch Kedars (12,073 ft). On the way to Chopta, the base from where the 3.5km trek begins, we saw a partly-eaten cow, which we later learned was a cheetah's kill. The shaken sanyasinis of Sarada Math who had taken the same route around 6.30 am had witnessed the animal savouring its prey.

The tourism cottages that later got washed away

JUNE 16-18: Destruction of roads by flooded rivers meant our Badrinath excursion was ruined and we were confined to our hotel with no electricity and no link to the rest of the state. But the hotel owner told us to keep our doors unlocked at night so that if they raised an alarm we might escape. A cloudburst which had washed away 350 people in the area last September keeps the locals on their toes. The warning was enough to give us sleepless nights!

The next day, word of mouth brought some news of the devastation all round. Our driver told us: “Had I taken you to Gaurikund, I wouldn’t have survived as the place where I park my vehicle has got washed away.”

JUNE 19-20: We come down till Rudraprayag, our driver expertly manoeuvring the vehicle along strips of roads that are precariously dangling over the mountain stream below. We cross several spots where landslides have been cleared barely hours ago. Freshly-fallen boulders are being moved to a side to let vehicles pass. The Mandakini, we find, has washed away the GMVN cottages that we were planning to stay in. On June 20, we reach Hardwar. In contrast to the town that was bustling a week ago, on June 20, it looks deserted now.

JUNE 21: Finally, we fly back to Calcutta. My mother-in-law, an ardent believer in Hanumanji, visits the local Hanuman Mandir to offer thanksgiving for our escape.

Postscript: Days later, Surojit uncle could finally get through to Shuklaji in Kedarnath. We were worried as he couldn’t be contacted since June 15. Shuklaji said he had managed to scamper to the rooftop when the floods came and got saved. Affable even in the midst of destruction, he has invited us back to make good the rest of our ruined tour plan.