Seema Mangal was really happy to see her children and parents reach their house safely back from Srinagar where they had been stuck for almost four days. They were back in Borivli at 11.30pm on Thursday. The hardships they had to undergo while in Srinagar were unimaginable. Surely, the army did help. But this family is more grateful to their tour manager.
For Purshottam Agrawal, Srinagar still remains a nightmare. He said: "We are glad to be back with our family; it's god's biggest gift yet."
It was a trip the family would never forget. "For three days we ate just daal and rice. Hotels too didn't get ration. Everything was under water and shops were closed due to the incessant rains.
Our return journey was made possible by our tour manager Yasin Mohammed. He's the one who got us here safely. He assured us that he would get us to the airport, but that was not an easy task. We had to walk seven hours at a stretch to get to the airport. The actual distance is only 10km, but we had to take a circuitous route and travel 212km as most roads were under water.
There was another route too, but that would have taken us 36 hours. When we reached the airport, the flight had left an hour ago. Officials were however cooperative, and got us on to another flight at 8.30pm."
Agrawal just couldn't stop explaining what a great help their tour manager had been. "Even today we live with the myth that Hindus and Muslims are essentially enemies. Yasin went out of the way to help us. Humanity cannot be bound by mere religions. His family, including his wife, two-year-old daughter and mother were staying at a dargah and eating meals at a langar, and this guy was serving us selflessly, making sure we were safe."
Adding to it Seema said: "I will never forget the way he helped my parents. My husband and I have had sleepless nights."
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