Ongole, June 25, 2013: It was a fresh lease of life for us, say a group of pilgrims 30 pilgrims from Addanki who returned safely from their pilgrimage to Uttarakhand on Monday.

The pilgrims, after visiting Badrinath, Kedarnath and Gangotri, were stranded at Nallupani for three days from June 14, they said on reaching Thimmayipalem on the outskirts of Addanki town in Prakasam district by the New Delhi-Chennai Tamil Nadu express.

A portion of the lodge in which we moved into collapsed, said retired school teacher K.Veeranjanyelu while recalling their nightmarish experience in the Himalayan state along with his wife K. Govindamma on reaching their home from Vijayawada by bus.

“We moved to another building near by and managed with little provision left with us in the mini-bus,” added his son Venkata Mathusudhakar Babu while talking to The Hindu along with his wife Madhavi.

“All the elder members in our family had left for a holy dip in Saraswathi Pushkar, leaving our son and daughter back here. We are fortunate to see them again,” they added.

‘Non-cooperative’

“We had a lot of difficulty in getting food and water as the local people were non-cooperative,” said one of the pilgrims K. Mallikarjun. and a group of another 18 pilgrims who had returned from Uttarakhand said they were stranded between Uttarkashi and Dehradun for five days as 30 landslips had occurred.

The group leader Y.Seshagiri Rao from Siddagyana ashram in Kanigiri told The Hindu “it was worst-ever experience for all of us.” His wife Venkata Subbamma said, “We were waiting with baited breath fearing landslip any time.” They were all praise for Union Minister of State for Railways Kotla Suryaprakash Reddy for arranging their return journey on reaching the Andhra Bhavan in New Delhi.

Narrating their tale of woes, another group of 12 pilgrims who had returned to Markapur said “It will take another 15 days for us to recover. We were forced to trek 30 km due to landslips enroute,” said P.Satyanarayana who had returned from Badrinath after performing “Pindapradanam”.

Meanwhile, another group of 10 pilgrims from Markapur who had reached the relief camp near Gangotri after trekking a distance of 30 km, were waiting for their turn to be airlifted from there, said M. Venkata Subbaiah, father of one of the pilgrims M.. Kesava.

Source: The Hindu, DT. June 25, 2013.