Challenges are always parts of our lives. Challenges help a person grow and become better. They help a person get out of his comfort zone. I have faced many challenges (as I am sure you have too), but this one’s interesting. This happened when I went to Srinagar for my Graduation in 2014.
I was in the first semester of my undergraduate course in NIT, Srinagar. It has just been one month; we were just settling in our hostels, getting to know our college and adjusting to the climate; suddenly it started raining heavily and it rained a lot.
Due to this heavy rain, the water level in the Jhelum river rose suddenly and abruptly, causing a flood. the whole Srinagar was submerged underwater. This rising water from the Jhelum river was released into the Dal Lake. Now, Dal Lake is right next to our college.
The water of the lake started to fill our campus and then our hostels. We were told to evacuate the hostels as quickly as possible. We took whatever we could grab and went to the classrooms which were far from the hostels and water. We stayed for a night there. After that, we proceeded to the Kashmir University campus, which was nearby but away from water.
Due to the limited availability of rooms and they told us to stay in a building. We slept on the floor. We stayed there for 7 days. The food was limited, the water was also limited and we were not able to contact anybody due to the unavailability of mobile networks.
So, we decided we had to ration out our foods and see what happens. Some volunteers had the job of preparing and distributing food, which was mainly biscuits and sometimes rice. We did that for a week or so.
We needed a permanent solution and the solution for this was to reach the airport. Now the airport is around 20 km away. We arranged some trucks and buses which left for the airport but couldn’t reach there because there was water on the roads. We decided we will go on foot, we walked for about one and a half hours through the water and reached the airport. From the Airport, we were airlifted back to Jammu from where we went to our homes.
It was a hell of a tragedy with a lot to learn from. The things I learned a lot from this challenge are - there is always a solution, you need to look hard; you need to work together to face any problem; and no matter how grim the situation may appear, it is not that bad.
