In the quest for hope - 'Seva' with duty When I was told that I had been posted to Bilaspur as SDM, it was only the impressions I had developed through hearsay that came to my mind. The place was full of aggressive litigation happy people, who were otherwise, I was told quite dry. The weather was bad – too hot for the summers and too cold for the winters. There were massive law and order related problems due to the clashes between management of the newly arrived cement plants and their rowdy truck unions. However, these were not the issues on which I spent much mind space. The one dominant theme which I was reminded time and again by people around me ( from the boss to my driver) was that in the capacity of the post I has been assigned I was to organise the ShravanAsthmi Fair at Naina Devi Temple. The temple has a history of tragedies during the Mela. At least twice in the last thirty years there have been massive stampedes in which hundreds had died. Why Naina Dev...
Collection of human experiences.