Swept away by raging Beas: Manali’s Sher-e-Punjab restaurant was once a flood-battered home

Manali’s Sher-e-Punjab restaurant

The Beas river has once again claimed a structure with a fraught past — this time sweeping away the two-storey building that housed the Sher-e-Punjab restaurant on Rohtang Road near Manali, a premises already scarred by the 1995 flash floods.

According to The Indian Express, the concrete building, originally constructed as a residence, had faced repeated threats from the river over the decades. Nearly 30 years ago, the floods of September 1995 — which killed 65 people across Himachal Pradesh and devastated Kullu, Manali and Mandi — left the house badly damaged. Though it was later rented out and converted into a restaurant in 2021, its vulnerability to the Beas was well known.

Owner Saravjeet Singh Gulati, who runs the well-known Sher-e-Punjab on Mall Road, leased the Rohtang Road property from Sukhbir Mehta in 2020, opening the branch a year later. His daughter Sehaj managed the outlet, which could accommodate 125 diners.

Gulati told The Indian Express that the building’s location had always been precarious. In 2023, swollen waters had struck the rear boundary wall, though the structure held firm. But in the early hours of Tuesday, the raging Beas swept the entire restaurant away, leaving only the front wall bearing the familiar signage.

“Usually, staff close the restaurant by 10 pm, but on Monday, they shut it around 8.30 pm. The last customers were a senior administrative officer and his driver. Luckily, no one was inside when the building collapsed in the early hours of Tuesday,” Gulati said, as quoted by The Indian Express. He estimated a financial loss of around Rs 1 crore.

Gulati, who was in Mumbai visiting relatives, stated that the severe disruption to telecommunication connectivity in Manali had left him unable to contact his children and staff since Tuesday evening. He confirmed that he was only able to speak to the reporter by phone because he was outside the affected region.

The tragedy marks a bitter blow for the Gulati family, whose roots in the region date back to 1947, when his grandfather migrated from Peshawar in Pakistan to Mandi. Gulati recalled how his father, Amar Singh, began with small trade before the family established its hospitality presence in Manali.

Alongside Sher-e-Punjab, a snow-dress rental outlet and a daily-needs store - both makeshift structures - were also washed away. A senior Kullu district administration officer told The Indian Express that revenue teams would assess whether the establishments were located within permissible limits. “For now, our priority is to restore connectivity,” the officer added.

Images and videos of the lone surviving wall of the restaurant went viral on social media, turning the wreckage into a symbol of the Beas’s unrelenting power. For many locals, the collapse also evoked memories of 1995, when the same premises first bore the brunt of the river’s fury.