The evening of Monday, July 28th, felt heavy and humid in Dehradun. The usual cheerful sounds of the neighbourhood were muted, replaced by the somber drone of news channels echoing from open windows.
The Mansa Devi tragedy hung over the city like the low, dark monsoon clouds.
Inside their small cottage, Santa had been restlessly flipping through channels, each one showing the same heartbreaking images of chaos and grief from Haridwar.
With a heavy sigh, he finally switched the television off, plunging the room into a sudden, thick silence.
“Eight people, Banta,” Santa said, his voice barely a whisper, as he stared at the blank screen.
“They woke up yesterday morning with prayers on their lips, planning to seek a goddess’s blessing.”
“And by noon… they were just a number in a news report.”
“It makes my blood run cold.”
He was quiet for a moment, then seemed to find a sliver of consolation.
“It makes you think, though.”
“Year after year, lakhs of people go to Kedarnath.”
“The path is a hundred times more dangerous.”
“Yet, Bhole Nath has always protected his devotees from a big stampede there.”
“It must be His divine grace.”
“We must be truly blessed in the high mountains.”
Banta, who had been gazing out the window at the rain-soaked garden, turned slowly. His face was etched with a profound sadness, but his eyes held a sharp, almost angry clarity.
“Blessed, Santa?” he asked, his voice cutting through the quiet room.
“Or have we just been lucky?”
“Extraordinarily, unforgivably, foolishly lucky?”
The word stung Santa.
“Lucky?”
“What a thing to say!”
“It’s faith that protects us!”
“Is it?” Banta countered, his voice low but intense. He stood up and walked over to Santa.
“Let me paint you a picture.”
“A man is given a revolver.”
“He knows one of the six chambers holds a bullet.”
“Every morning, he puts the gun to his head, spins the chamber, and pulls the trigger.”
“For a whole year, it just clicks.”
“He tells everyone he is blessed, that God is protecting him.”
“Is he really blessed, Santa?”
“Or is he a lucky fool whose time is running out?”
Santa said nothing, the image stark and horrifying.
“What happened at Mansa Devi,” Banta continued, his voice resonating with grim finality, “is that the gun, after years of clicking, finally fired.”
“For decades, we have been sending millions of our faithful onto crumbling, slippery, bidirectional mountain tracks, pushing them through a system with almost no real-time control, and then patting ourselves on the back for a ‘successful yatra‘ when a catastrophe doesn’t happen.”
“That wasn’t divine management.”
“That was the universe granting us a lucky streak.”
“And on Sunday, our luck ran out in Haridwar.”
“The bullet for Kedarnath and Yamunotri is still in the chamber, and we are still spinning it every single day, calling it faith.”
The comforting thought of a blessing evaporated from the room, replaced by the chilling, metallic click of a spinning cylinder.
संता – बंता की इस जुगलबन्दी से आज हमने क्या सीखा:-
- समझ / Discover: वर्तमान में हमारे द्वारा की जाने वाली यात्रा की तैयारियां मुख्यतः यात्रियों के पंजीकरण व यात्रियों की सुविधा से जुड़ी विभिन्न व्यवस्थाओ के लिये तैनात किये जाने वाले अधिकारियो व कार्मिको की संख्या तक ही सीमित हो कर रह जाती है / Current preparations often focus heavily on logistical metrics like registration numbers, and deployment counts of staff and facilities.
- विज्ञान / Science: भीड़ में व्यक्तियों की सुरक्षा संख्या से कहीं ज्यादा भीड़ के बहाव, घनत्व तथा गति के प्रबन्धन पर निर्भर करती हैं। भीड़ के बहाव व घनत्व की जानकारी के आभाव में मात्र व्यक्तियों की संख्या का ज्ञान सच में किसी काम का नहीं है / Crowd safety is not about static numbers but about managing dynamic flow, density, and speed. Knowing how many people are in a system is useless without the ability to control how they move through it.
- चिंतन / Reflect: यात्रियों की संख्या का निर्धारण तथा उन्हें दी जाने सुविधाओं से जुड़ी विभिन्न व्यवस्थाओ करने का अति उत्साह, हमें (भगदड़ के लिये उत्तरदायी) भीड़ प्रबन्धन तथा भीड़ की मनोदशा व व्यवहार तथा गति विज्ञान से जुड़े मूलभूत पक्षों की अनदेखी के बावजूद सुरक्षा का छद्म आभास करा सकता है / An over-emphasis on counting and logistics can create a false sense of security while ignoring the fundamental principles of crowd dynamics, which is the actual cause of stampedes.
- उत्तरदायित्व / Responsibility: सच कहें तो प्राधिकारियों को मात्र यात्रियों की संख्या का निर्धारण करने से कहीं ज्यादा अपना ध्यान सक्रिय रूप से सतत निगरानी, गति व घनत्व नियंत्रण तथा आवश्यकताओं के प्रबन्धन के आधार पर भीड़ की गति के प्रबन्धन पर केन्द्रित करना चाहिये / Authorities must shift their primary focus from merely counting people to actively managing their movement through systems like real-time monitoring, flow control, and demand management.
संता – बंता की यह जुगलबन्दी आपको कैसी लगी, कृपया हमें जरुर बताये
व
इस जुगलबन्दी को बेहतर बनाने के लिये अपने सुझाव अवश्य दें।
हमें हमेशा की तरह आपके सुझावों, प्रतिक्रियाओं व कटाक्षो का बेसब्री से इंतजार रहता हैं और सच मानिये इसी के आधार पर हम अपने आप में, अपनी सोच व रचनात्मकता में सुधार करने को प्रेरित होते हैं।
सो अच्छा – बुरा जैसा आपको महसूस हुवा हो, कमेंट जरुर करते रहें।
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