Mount Abu’s Post-Lockdown Rush: Paradise or Pandemic Waiting to Happen?
Plummy from school, per kind favour Brother Agnello
Amidst India’s Independence Day celebrations, overshadowed by the pandemic, another story emerged from the hills of Rajasthan. Mount Abu, the state’s only hill station and long marketed as the “Green Oasis of Rajasthan,” found itself flooded with tourists desperate to escape months of lockdown, confinement, fear, and fatigue.
The timing was predictable.
The monsoon had transformed the hills into a spectacle once again. Clouds drifted through the forest. Waterfalls roared back to life. The air carried the scent of wet earth and freedom. For thousands arriving from neighbouring Gujarat, Mount Abu offered something their cities could not — space to breathe, cooler temperatures, and the illusion that normal life had returned.
Hotels filled. Roads choked with vehicles. Crowds gathered at viewpoints, markets, and waterfalls. After months of economic paralysis, many locals welcomed the return of business. Tourism is the lifeblood of Mount Abu’s fragile economy. Shopkeepers, hotel owners, taxi drivers, and small vendors had suffered during the lockdown. For them, the sudden influx felt like the first sign of recovery.
But behind the smiles and business transactions lurked an uncomfortable question nobody wanted to answer.
At what cost?
Mount Abu’s residents confronted a different reality—the fear that the virus itself may travel up the hills along with the crowds—as tourists arrived seeking relief from lockdown boredom.
Social distancing in tourist hotspots became a joke. Masks appeared more decorative than protective. Public enthusiasm overwhelmed public caution. At the waterfalls and scenic points that drew visitors, careless exposure was becoming an issue.
The tragedy of this pandemic has always been humanity’s brief memory. Once restrictions are relaxed, numerous people act as though the danger has gone. It has not. COVID-19 does not disappear because people are tired of hearing about it.
Mount Abu now stands caught between survival and safety.
The town cannot survive without tourism. Yet uncontrolled tourism during a pandemic risks turning a peaceful hill station with limited medical infrastructure into a vulnerable hotspot. That is the cruel dilemma facing countless tourist destinations across India, but nowhere is the contradiction more visible than here in the Aravallis.
The authorities, meanwhile, continue their balancing act — encouraging tourism while preaching caution. But slogans alone will not protect a town if enforcement remains weak and visitors treat the hills like an escape from responsibility.
The beauty of Mount Abu during the monsoon is undeniable. The mist, forests, lakes, and waterfalls continue to cast their spell as they always have. But nature’s beauty cannot shield anyone from a virus.
Freedom without discipline is recklessness.
And if people abandon caution in the name of tourism, this brief economic revival could leave behind consequences far more lasting than the holiday memories visitors carry home.
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| Misty Mount Abu |
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| An accident waiting to happen at waterfall Mt Abu |
(Photo via WhatsApp )
Waterfall Mt Abu
(Vid via WhatsApp )
"A beautiful waterfall on Mount Abu, with water tumbling down the rocky terrain and surrounded by lush foliage and trees."
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