I
have been to my hometown Garhwal, Uttarakhand few days back. It is Heaven
on Earth. I travelled so many places in India (you can read my love for nature
and places I visited in one of my blog http://joshimeenu.blogspot.in/2013/02/nature-and-mee_27.html),
but Garhwal is the most beautiful place I have ever been to and no, I am not being biased with this
sentence. Name of my village is Basola. It is said that before going to
Badrinath, Lord Vishu stayed some time in our village. Hence the name Basola (kyuki Vishuniji kuch
samaye ke liye yahan बसे they). We have a small Badrinathh Temple in our village which is the only temple in
village. And my parents and other villagers say that a Snake and a Lion are
often seen near temple in night(not everynight :P).
It is very rural area.
Least developed what you can imagine. Though electricity reached my village few
years back but it is not a continuous supply of electricity. It is mountain
area, there is no scarcity of water. We have ample of lakes, waterfall, rivers,
but one has to walk minimum a kilometer to bring potable water on hilly roads
keeping a gagri made of copper metal over ones head. And
proper water connection to each house is just a couple of years old. Even LPG
cylinder and Gas stove is not available at every house.
The purpose of this
blog post was not to describe the positive and negative aspects of my village
but about something else. As every one of us know how the condition of
Badrinath is and Kedarnath this monsoon is. While my visit was also in monsoon
but our area was not affected from the natural disaster. It was raining but
without causing any problem. But on the third evening of our visit, mee and my
bhabhi were sitting in our open yard, facing towards our house. Bhabi said,
"achanak se, river ki aawaaz kuch zyada hi clear sunayi dene
lagi" (yes, we could hear river flowing hundreds meter below mountain
absolutely clear, sitting at our house, and I tell you it is heavenly feeling).
I looked around and saw rain reaching towards us from the mountain behind our
house. I told bhabi, “Arey, river ki aawaaz
nhi, hai wo dekho baarish aa rahi hai.) We immediately ran inside house,
after taking all the clothes from clothesline at the end of yard.
It rained cats and
dogs whole night. Mee and my family went worried. Pictures and videos of
Badrinath and Kedarnath showing on news channels suddenly started to make us
more uncomfortable. It was still raining in the morning. Chachiji told me that
she is going to bring some fresh vegetables from our farm, which is 200 mt.
away from house. I stopped her and forbade her to go out in rain. Rain in
mountains can be very dangerous. Nobody knows from where land would slide while
you are walking on it or you slip on stones. She asked then what would she cook for
breakfast. I thought and told her you don’t worry chachiji and let’s prepare
Maggi. J
I asked her to light
the chulha, yes the earthen stove, cut onions and tomatoes and cooked 18
packets of Maggi on chulha. I was feeling as if I am preparing Maggi for whole
baraat. Eating Maggi in gaon, while it
was raining heavily outside, was tremendous feeling. Suddenly Maggi tasted more
delicious than ever.
So, this was story
of “Mee and my Chulhe wali Maggi”