Actor Manasi Parekh had a close shave this past week. The National Award-winning actor was in Tibet for the Mansarovar Yatra when the flash floods in Nepal hit. The actor, part of a group sponsored by the Isha Foundation, was hours away from the Gyirong Port immigration centre when the deluge hit the building, submerging the whole town. One group from the Isha Foundation had reached the spot just minutes earlier. Manasi and her group were lucky, relatively, as they were hours away.
Speaking to Hindustan Times from China, the actor details the harrowing last few days, and her narrow escape.
HT: Where were you exactly when the flash flood began?
Manasi Parekh: When the incident happened, we were all on our way, halfway through to that place actually. Because our we were supposed to reach that building the next day.
We were on our way to this place called New Dongba. And we thankfully we stayed overnight there. We could have gone straight away but for our itinerary was planned that we had to stay back one night and then watched. And that’s when this horrible incident happened.
HT: You must have been stranded there because there was nowhere to go
Manasi Parekh: We were 5 hours away from the place where the incident happened. But thankfully we were not stranded. In fact, we had reached our hotels. Now we didn’t know what to do because now there was no immigration there. The whole town was submerged. And it seemed such an unreal news because we were literally there like 6 days earlier, when we entered China. It was a huge structure. The fact that it completely collapsed that was when one realises nothing in life can be planned. Anything can happen anywhere.
HT: Then how did you guys proceed from there?
Manasi Parekh: Thankfully, we had Wi-Fi, electricity, food. So we were just grateful for all those things really. And we had each other. There were around 87 of us in the hotel with Sadhguru. Of course we were all devastated with the news because 77 people from Isha Foundation were missing, among the 1,500 people at least if not more. And we didn’t know what to do. We did not know what was going to happen, how many days we were going to be stuck in this place. But thankfully Chinese authorities were very fast. And Isha Foundation were in touch with the PMO and with embassies of every country, including the Chinese government. Then we got permission to use another exit. So we are on on route that exit right now. We are in a safe space.
HT: So are you all on your way back to India now?
Manasi Parekh: Yes, we are going to figure out our plan now in the next couple of days.
HT: Sadhguru is with you, right now?
Manasi Parekh: Yes, he is, and we are just blessed and grateful that we have him. The amount of pressure and the amount of sadness that has happened is so much that we still are processing it. I just I don’t know what to say what say after such an incident.