‘Goddess has to cross': Kishtwar cloudburst toll rises to 62; grieving Chasoti village tones down ritual passage of Chandi Mata, Machail Yatra remains suspended

Time of India

3 days ago

The Army insists the bridge is first a lifeline. 'It is for relief, evacuation, survival,' a defence personnel said.
CHASOTI(KISHTWAR): The sacred mace of Chandi Mata is preparing to cross a Bailey bridge laid by the Army on Sunday afternoon after a cloudburst on August 14 left at least 62 people dead in Kishtwar's Chasoti, with rescue workers warning the toll may climb to 63 after a severed leg was recovered that could belong to a woman's body found two days earlier.
The Machail Mata yatra has been suspended indefinitely, but the mace will still move ahead, carried by a few attendants and a skeletal line of mules. In a valley still counting its dead, the crossing has become more than ritual — it is faith meeting disaster.
The Army's intervention made the passage possible, but the scene bears little resemblance to the carnival atmosphere that usually surrounds the yatra. The once sprawling caravan of 500 to 600 devotees, with dozens of mules hauling rations and bedding, has dwindled to a skeleton line of barely 20 animals.
Only a handful of attendants will walk with the mace, their chants subdued against the roar of the river.
For centuries the mace — chhadi — has threaded the same path through Kishtwar's high valleys, carried to the shrine at 9,500 feet in processions of song, drum and caravans of pilgrims. The journey sustained villages along the route, swelling them into bazaars of kitchens and stalls. This year, that rhythm has been silenced.
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At Chasoti, floodwaters collapsed suspension bridges, buried shops and swept away tea stalls that once served pilgrims. In their place, the Army hammered steel girders into a Bailey bridge within 72 hours. It now spans a torrent where bodies are still being pulled out from under boulders. A dozen earthmovers squat at its mouth, pushing aside boulders and timber strewn by the flood, while rescue workers scrape through the debris with spades.
The mace will cross here, even as recovery teams dig just feet away.
For villagers, the collision of faith and disaster is raw. 'I begged them not to take the mace this year,' said Parveen Singh, 38, a langar server whose brother's stall is missing. 'It feels like we are asking the goddess to walk across a graveyard.'
The Army insists the bridge is first a lifeline. 'It is for relief, evacuation, survival,' a defence personnel said, pointing to villages in Paddar valley still cut off.
For locals, however, the symbolism of the mace crossing a bridge built atop wreckage and flanked by earthmovers is harder to reconcile.
Some read it as an intrusion into grief. Sunita Devi, 55, who has cooked for pilgrims at a langar for fifteen years, said she could not light her stove this season. 'Normally the air is heavy with drums and rice cooking. This time, there is nothing. Just the bridge rattling when trucks go over.'
Others insist the journey is necessary. 'If the goddess does not cross, we will sink completely into grief,' said Mohammad Yousuf, 46, a schoolteacher from Atholi. 'Even in silence, her presence tells us we are not abandoned.'
The tension — between stopping in mourning and continuing in faith — reflects the larger unease of Himalayan pilgrimages in a changing climate. Monsoons are harsher and landslides more frequent, yet roads and markets keep climbing higher with little preparation.
'This yatra has been interrupted before — by militancy in the 1990s, by Covid in 2020 — but climate shocks are different,' said Ritika Sharma, 29, a teacher at the Chasoti primary school.
'They are not temporary. They are showing us that the mountains themselves are changing.'
Even the logistics of the mace's movement remain uncertain.
TOI
's texts to senior police officers seeking clarity on security and arrangements for the crossing went unanswered. For families still living in relief camps, that silence echoes their own unanswered questions.
Krishan Lal, 62, whose grocery shop is now under rubble, put it plainly: 'Every year, she came like a guest of honour. This year, she comes like a mourner, walking with us in grief.'
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