Went to one of our project sites near kullu. It's a tunnel project to bring the water from parvathi river and the company has to carve a tunnel out of a gigantic mountain for more than 20 kms. We went about 1.9 kms inside the mountain i.e the tunnel. It was an eerie experience indeed as it was dark, lit by the powerful lights of the blasting and excavation party. A giant boomer drills holes up to 4 meters in the rock and then stuffed with explosives and finally blasted. The might of nature overcome by the mind of man, albeit destructively. After the blast the enormous pressure i.e the 1200+ meters of solid rock starts telling on the top of the tunnel and the tremendous pressure makes the loose rocks burst intermittently when it no longer is able to resist the strain. It plops with a terrifying sound and I was just meters across and it seemed that any time the whole thing might cave in or the debri flung in all directions as nature vents its fury at man's blasphemy of even thinking and then attempting to tame mother nature.

The workers were holding their lives and working, in fact they did not work as we witnessed this phenomenon which does not occur daily, lucky for we were able to see first hand of nature's fury. The whole trip to that place was just breathtaking, valleys everywhere, mountains of different shapes, sizes and colors, the sunlight playing a myriad games basking the moutains, rocks and trees in different hues, a feast for eyes, for once this phrase has some real meaning. Rivulets and streams meandering all over the mountains battling with the rocks. What beauty and and what splendor. The mountains towering and leaping to the skies in all its grim majesty, a magnificence that leaves us in awe and incredulity. We returned after night fell and the trip back the meandering ghat roads was fraught with danger lurking at every bend. It was not so easy to take the thing off our minds.