Dehradun, Aug 7: When a sudden cloudburst triggered a devastating flash flood in the village of Dharali in Uttarakhand, it tore through homes and shops — but not all lives were lost. Many residents were spared, not by warning systems or official evacuation, but by tradition.
Earlier that morning, nearly half the village had crossed a narrow bridge to attend Hardoodh, a little-known local festival held annually during the monsoon month of Sawan to honour Naag Devta, the serpent deity believed to guard rivers, bring rain, and protect life.
Under a modest hillside temple, villagers gathered with flowers, milk, and silent devotion. Unbeknownst to them, their ritual had placed them out of harm’s way.
“Had people been inside their homes, the loss could have been far greater,” said Sanjay Singh Pawar, a resident. “It was truly the grace of the divine that most of us were outside, gathered in one place,” echoed Kavita Kumari.
The Hardoodh festival doesn’t feature in any guidebooks or official calendars. It lives in memory and practice — passed orally across generations in villages like Dharali and nearby Jhala. Quiet and unassuming, it is observed every year without fanfare, rooted in the rhythms of the mountains and the monsoon.
This year, the festival happened to fall on the very day disaster struck.
“We had gone to offer prayers on the other side of the Kheer Gad stream,” said a man from Jhala, who requested anonymity. “God is kind. That’s why we’re still here. But the other side…” His voice trailed off as he gestured to the flattened homes and water-logged rubble. “That’s where the pain is.”
What divided the village was more than a stream. The side where the prayers took place lies higher, on more stable ground. The opposite bank, over the years, had seen increasing construction—homes, shops, and guesthouses—edging dangerously close to the water.
When the glacial-fed torrent came rushing down, gravity chose the path. The side built on loose, encroached land bore the brunt.
M.P.S. Bisht, a geology professor at Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University and a native of the region, saw deeper meaning in the destruction. “The deluge devastated the side that had been unscientifically developed on the riverbed,” he said, reflecting on both nature’s warning and the community’s inadvertent escape.
In Dharali, survival this time came not from design, but devotion — and perhaps, the whispered blessings of a guardian deity whose story survives only in the hearts of the hills.
