Punasangchu In Spate

-->Something urgent had come up and so I had to cut short my trip to the South and return to Thimphu yesterday.

As I drove up the Tsirang-Wangdue road, I noticed that the Punasangchu had swollen and its color was a thick murky chocolate. It was strewn with debris consisting of whole trees and driftwood that it smashed against huge boulders in its path. The roar was deafening and as it seethed and frothed through the ravine, I was reminded of nature’s humbling power.

Nature's wrath

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When I reached Wangdue, I noticed that there were lots of people by the river bank - picking up dead or dying fish:

People collecting fish below Wangduephodrang Dzong

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Those of you who can differentiate fish would realize that all the fish in the hands of these people shown above are Yue-Nga or local fish, except the one in the left hand of the person wearing white shirt and crouching in the river. That one is brown trout.

Is this proof that the trout species are lot more resilient than our local fish breed?

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Floods are bad for aquatic life and in its wake it causes havoc to the life form living in the rivers. But if there is one thing I learnt in all my years on this earth, I have learnt that there is a pattern to nature’s madness. Nothing happens by chance. If it destroys something, it does so because it wants to foster something else.