There has not been a single night since the fateful June 17 morning at Kedarnath that Bharti Gupta has slept properly. When she closes her eyes all she sees is a wall of water gushing towards her and she is holding on to her two children screaming for help. She wakes up with tears streaming down her eyes. God spared her children and her husband but within the fifteen minutes that destiny's cruel hand touched this family from Sirhind,they had lost five members including three children. Hoping against hope for them to return,Bharti and her husband Rajiv are going to live with the Kedarnath nightmare forever. We planned the Kedarnath-Badrinath trip with my sister Archana and her family who lives in Khanna. My elder brother's son too came along. In all,including the driver we were 11 who left Sirhind on June 14 morning. relates Rajiv Gupta a rice miller from Sirhind. We were in a room in a dharamshala just opposite Kedarnath that morning when at around 6 am we heard a commotion and someone shouting that a flood is going to hit us. We rushed out of the room. I and the children ran to one side while the others rushed in different directions. I saw the temple and held on to the structure of Nandi ji outside. A wave of water gushed over us and for several second we were under water and when the water passed over us we stood up. I could not see Rajiv anywhere, recalls Bharti. Rajiv was the last to leave the room but by the time he reached the door the water pushed the door closed and he held on to the grills on the window. The water submerged him and then as quickly as the water had moved in,it receded leaving a trail of debris. Everyone seemed to be screaming. I had the children and after over an hour I managed to see Rajiv. Then we looked for the others but could not see anyone, recalls Bharti. While Rajiv,Bharti and their two children Madhav and Nandini survived,Archana,her husband Tejinder Gupta and two out of their three children Komal (21) and Promin (18) went missing. Both are students of AS College,Khanna. Rajiv's elder brother's son Naman Goel,a class XI student of Vivek High School in Chandigarh also went missing. The driver,Pargat Singh,from Fatehgarh Sahib,who had served the family for fifteen years too was never seen again. Archana's 15 year-old son Shubham who was with Rajiv and Bharti that morning has survived. Dazed,Shubham a class X student has not talked much since his return. He is in a state of shock. We are still hopeful that his family will return. We will wait for them. We were stationed in Dehradun for fifteen days and have looked for them everywhere but we cannot lose hope. God cannot be this cruel, says Rajesh Gupta. Rajiv's younger brother.
