The Great Downpour

Chapter XIV

Chapter XIV

For almost 30-40 minutes the water carried the boys and girls farther and farther out into the jungle. Almost all of them except Nazima knew a bit of swimming, but none was an expert, so that they kept swallowing water along the way. Nearly all except Sandesh passed out completely, and their bodies were physically carried by the running water almost 20-30 kilometres inside, into the deepest, densest part of Pench National Park. The two peons Gangadin and Mahadev had met with the same fate, and as the evening darkened, the ten of them reached a large hollow in the bed of the now much larger stream of water; the velocity of the water had slowed down somewhat, and the semi-conscious to unconscious men and women slowed down too. As they hit the banks, some of them got entangled in the reeds and grass, while others bumped past the first slowdown to spill out into the next stretch of rapids and went ahead another 5 kilometres before a similar slowing down of the river banked them too.

Sandesh remained aware of his long and dangerous tumble, but could hardly do anything as the water swept him along as if he was on a free fall. Almost 20 minutes or so into the fall, he slowed down a bit and managed to swim across to one of the banks. He pulled himself upright and tried to look for the others in the rapidly fading daylight. Naturally, he could not find anyone as they had all been carried further downstream. He stepped on to terra firma and sat down to collect his breath and his wits about him.

What an eventful day it had been for them all! I wonder what is happening back at the Reserve Office. The buses must have already left. I do hope they had kept one bus waiting for them. They will come to look for us soon.

His hopes thus buoyed, he bent forwards to sip some of the water from the river and began to look around. Should I walk downstream and try and locate the others or go back upstream and reach the Reserve Office as early as possible?

He had no way of knowing that he was more than twenty kilometres downstream from the point where he had fallen. His body hurt in many places. His chest did not hurt. I do not have any broken ribs, Thank God! He carefully felt along all his limbs and found nothing broken. He had grazed himself on both his elbows, his left thigh and along the better part of his torso. A few spots oozed blood too, but his head and face had been totally spared. He had remembered to ball himself up while he was being carried out by the water; hence he was not hurt badly at all.

Just then, he thought he saw something floating in the centre of the more-or-less static water in this part of the river. It seemed bulky and almost human in appearance. It seemed to be moving this way and that, as if it was unable to break free from whatever it was that was holding it there. Sandesh waded out into the middle, and when the depth of the water went above his neck, he swam out to it. He immediately recognized the bulky object. It was the dead body of the Principal Fr. Anthony Mascarenhas. He pulled it out slowly and dragged it on to the bank. When he opened the tarpaulin cover that the body had been draped in, he discovered that the body was already decomposing; gases were accumulating under the skin and the body was beginning to bloat in places. The upper half of the body was pale as compared to the lower half that had accumulated dark blood under the skin. I must bury him.

How was he going to do that on his own, alone? He had nothing with which to dig a hole in the ground. What will I do? He debated about whether letting the body go in the river was a better alternative. Of course not, his mind screamed. The Principal was a Christian and had the right to be given a decent burial. He decided to wait till the morning before trying to locate his other friends and conferring with them about what to do with the body of their Princi. He washed himself as much as he could and then decided to try and look for his friends at least while a little daylight was still available. For nearly 45 minutes or so, he continued to search in both directions, upstream and downstream, but to his dismay, he could find no one. He sat dejectedly under a red silk cotton tree and wept. The tears seemed to dry up after a while. He rested his head against the trunk. Before long, his eyes closed and he went to sleep, tired and hungry.

***

Sundeep’s bus reached Seoni by 6 p.m. The Park and police authorities were contacted pretty soon and even now, a search and rescue party was being readied to go out to the Park the coming morning. Sundeep managed to get in touch with his own parents and explained the situation to them. They were devastated at the news that Seeta was missing and informed him that they would be coming to Seoni as soon as possible.

One by one, he reached the parents of all the other friends, namely Nanda, Yash, Bhairavi, Rita, Sandesh, Muhammad, Nazima, Farhad and Chand. The parents thanked him for informing them and began to make preparations to reach Seoni Police Station as early as possible.

He knew that in any case where people went missing, the trail turned cold with each passing hour. Whatever needed to be done had to be done as early as possible. However, try as he might, he was unable to convince the police or the Park authorities to begin the search the same evening. He rang up the College and asked for the numbers of the Vice Principal as well as the Trustees. He rang them up and asked them to try with all their might to organize a helicopter search mission soon – if possible, tonight.

Next, he contacted George, who had stayed back due to the death in the family and broke the news to him. George was devastated to hear the news.

“I’ll pray for their safety,” he said before putting down the receiver.

Having done all that he could, Sundeep went to a local boarding house called the “Jai Bhawani Hotel and Rest House” to pass the night. The other occupants of his bus were to also spend the night there, including the Maths teacher, Arun Chatterjee. He had no idea where his other teacher Peter Mathias had gone.

***

Despite the thinking of the staff of the St. Aloysius College, Sundeep’s calls to the parents created a wildfire of rumours and news that reached the ears of the media within hours. Most newspapers, radio channels and local, national as well as international TV channels heard about the disaster at the Pench National Park the same evening and special newscasts, evening editions of papers and so on, began to be aired or distributed. The media circus was on, and by the morning, the events at Pench would become first-page news and the leading headlines all over the country.

“College gives up its students to Mother Nature” said one headline. The others were even more sensational: “A dozen collegians feared killed in Pench” screamed one, while another said, “Dacoits massacre college youth, rob goods worth lakhs!”

Political repercussions of the event would also be felt all over the state of Madhya Pradesh. Uncomfortable questions would be asked: Why has the dacoit menace not been tamed? Who sent 600 picnickers to a National Park where wild-life conservation should be the primary objective? What were the Park Reserve Police doing while the dacoits had the upper hand? Why had the rope bridge not been replaced with a permanent structure over the years? Where were the thirteen missing people? What is the Central Government going to do to ensure that its Parks and Sanctuaries are kept 100% safe? How is it that dacoity continues to thrive in a state where the Police force numbers well over 25000?

At the same time, an urgent multi-task force meeting was called by the state Chief Minister at his residence in Bhopal at 10:00 p.m. The meeting included politicians, police big-wigs, the state Minister of Environment, the state Home Minister, the Disaster Management team of the local Seoni Municipality, the Army, the Fire Department, the Meteorologists, Astrologers, and many other person (s), all of them purportedly to search and rescue the missing people and to decide on issues like monetary compensation for those who lost their lives, etc.

The wheels of bureaucracy were moving, and they were moving fast. The Chief Minister also invited the other teachers, peons and Sundeep as well as some of the other students to the meeting.
It was hoped by everyone that the missing people would be located by the next day morning itself.
The unsaid feeling in everyone’s mind was: Let them all have survived.