As India begins to wind down the rescue operations in flood-hit Uttarakhand state, the focus now shifts to families searching for the missing, reports the BBC Hindi's Vineet Khare from Rishikesh.
We are standing outside a crowded bus station in the holy city of Rishikesh in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, which has been ravaged by floods and landslides in the last fortnight.
Deepak Sindhwani, who had gone for a pilgrimage to the temple town of Kedarnath, is among some 3,000 people who, officials say, are still missing after the disaster.
More than 800 people are reported to have been killed so far, but the exact number of deaths, say officials, may never be known.
Mr Sindhwani spoke to his sister last on 16 June and said he was trapped in Kedarnath after a bridge collapsed. After that, his phone went dead.
Since then, Ms Sindhwani has been unsuccessfully running from pillar to post to get information about her brother's whereabouts.
'No answers'
Nilesh Ninav, 39, has been camping in Rishikesh for the past fortnight to look for his parents, Dattatreya Ganapat and Lata.
They spoke for the last time on 15 June when his parents rang up to say that they were caught in a traffic jam.
"I have been running around trying to speak to officials, but I am not getting any answers," he said.
Officials admit they have no easy answers to help the distraught relatives of the missing, whose faces are plastered on the walls of railway and bus stations and on billboards and vehicles in Rishikesh.
Swollen rivers have swept away entire villages, where there were many travellers in what is the peak tourist and pilgrimage season.
Several bodies, which were found in a highly decomposed state, have been cremated in the affected areas. Many bodies may have been washed away or remain buried under debris.
"The families want to know the real picture. But considering the scale of the disaster and with so little information available, we cannot give them a definite answer," says Piyoosh Rautela, a senior disaster management official.
A helpline set up for the relatives of the missing has received more than 25,000 calls so far. Officials say the number of calls has reduced, possibly as many people have given up on finding their relatives.
But people like Mitesh Goradia from Gujarat are not giving up yet.
Mr Goradia and his brothers flew to the state capital, Dehradun, looking for their mother Pushaben, cousin Jayprakash and his wife Varsha, who had gone on a pilgrimage and not returned.
They have sought help from the police, the army, politicians and officials. They have recorded video interviews on their mobile phones with returning pilgrims who they think may have met their mother and cousin.
"We have proof they were alive till 23 June. We do not know what happened after that - whether they were killed during the rescue or are still in the villages looking for help," he said.
"We will wait until the last person is rescued. After the rescue mission is called off we will go up the hills ourselves and try to find whether my mother is with the locals."
'Earnings gone'
Deoli-Brahmagram is a village hamlet, 7 kilometers away from Guptkashi.
A small village with a few households, living on the earnings from pilgrims on the 'chaar-dhaam' yatra.
The men of the village, most of them mule operators ferrying pilgrims from one place to another, visited Kedarnath everyday for work.
But things would change from now on. With the pilgrimage facilities halted for a year, this means of earning is gone.
While this is just one side of the coin, village men are worried more about what lies on the flip side.
Most of the men in the village are dead. The gram-panchayat here have reported 57 men missing, presumably dead, branding it as the village of the 'widows'.
As heart-wrenching stories pour in from all quarters of the state, what stuns one is the extent to which the villages in Uttarakhand are bearing the after-math of the calamity.
With most of them inaccessible due to broken roads, even meeting the everyday requirements is a challenge for these people.
20 year old Sangeeta does not know what to do now. She is pregnant with her third child and there is no trace of her husband since the flash floods.
Almost similar to her story is that of Vanitha, who was married just a year ago and is now grieving her husband's death. She has stopped eating and there is no one to console her because the situation is the same in every second household here.
Children too are missing in some cases. Around 13 children between the age of 14 and 18 years have been reported missing here. Students of Rudraprayag Govt School, these children used to Learn the business of mule operators in the Kedar Valley during the peak season.
Afterall, that was to be their bread and butter when they grew. Located on a steep slope, how the village survived the landslide is a mystery. Grief, trauma and loneliness, post- Uttarakhand floods, is a story that is not resctricted to the villages.
Families of the missing and the dead in the cities and the urban areas too are coping with reality.
While some have committed suicide, not being able to face the reality, life for the rest is a routine. Words and phrase like "cannot forget", "dead bodies", "death", "help", "nightmares" are not uncommon for the survivors or the families of the dead.
In fact, some have decided not to re-visit Kedarnath again because that would bring back nightmares.
Lessons learnt or not, this chapter in the history of India has left an indelible mark in the minds of the people, especially those who are trying to live with the memories of the loved ones they have lost forever.
Wednesday 3 July 2013
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-23123799
http://news.oneindia.in/feature/2013/surviving-uttarakhand-disaster-report-on-living-dead-1250996.html
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