A

30-40-minute drive through

a shabby narrow short road

connects Joshimath and Auli

Skiing Village. An Uttarakhand

Transport Corporation’s (U.T.C.)

bus plies between Dehradun and Auli via Joshimath

almost daily. The bus reaches Auli in the

late evening and the same bus returns

next day around 05:00 am. So I took a

non-shared Bolero from Joshimath in the

morning on March 29, 2019. At one of the bends of

Sunil village, the corporation bus had fallen on the

riverside slope in the early morning. The accident

spot had small crowd. We stopped to find out more.

Fortunately, passengers sustained only non-fatal

injuries. My driver made a strong sales pitch instead

of empathizing with the victims. He claimed that the

buses were prone to accidents, whereas taxis were

safer on the Auli road.

The narrow road could neither afford speed nor rash

driving. At times, vehicles stopped to give pass to

the others. A pair of big vehicles or one big and one

small vehicle could not move side by side.

Uniformed

personnel

were

probably

more than

locals. Many trees were laden with

fresh flowers. Birds were aplenty

on verdant mountains welcoming

spring.

Variegated laughing thrush

Whistling thrush

Gray-wing black bird

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Volume 4, Issue 1 | June 2019