When I got a chance to revisit Shillong after three decades, I jumped at the opportunity. Do the pine trees still smell so good? Does the elegant Pinewood hotel retain its looks despite the years? Do women hawking paan or fish still wear lipstick and earrings? How much of the joyous meeting of the tribal and the Western spirits survives? |
Incredibly, all this is there and more "" in a mixture of pluses and minuses as life is prone to be. To get a feel of the Shillong I knew, I do a walk of the Police Bazaar area early in the morning before my workshop starts. The Assam-type structure of the State Bank branch, where I gallivanted a few hours daily during bachelorhood and where we played badminton into the cold night sustained by an endless supply of oranges, is gone, replaced by soulless concrete. |
But Ward Lake next door is well-preserved. Amidst all the high rises that have come up nearby, it looks almost miniature, like a child's playground with the ducks and swans ready to take to the water after a good night's rest. And there is the army of anglers rushing to take up vantage spots before the sun rises too high. |
But all this is yours only if you can get to Shillong, and yours again if you want to return. These are two big ifs. The Guwahati-Shillong Road, GS Road to regulars, is a stretch of hell. A workshop participant says he did the 90-odd kilometres in two hours-plus in February. I say I did it is just under five, to a chorus of "lucky you". |
Taxi drivers narrate with sadistic relish how so many are missing their flights from Guwahati regularly, courtesy jams on the highway that take an hour or more to clear. Suitably terrorised, I start off on my return journey at the crack of dawn for a flight that leaves at midday. As the darkness clears, Barapani, the large stretch of water on the outskirts of Shillong, is out of a dream. Layers of mist lie above the water, weaving a fantasy that causes a hill or a slice of water to vanish at will. |
I put down the absence of traffic to the early hour but the driver looks concerned. Why is there no oncoming traffic, he asks. Soon enough we know. There has been a crash between two ramshackle trucks which we can go around because of our Santro's size. But at the head of the stalled traffic from the other side is a huge trailer truck with heavy machinery. It can neither go back (other trucks are behind it) nor forward (because of the crash). We pass what looks like miles of stalled trucks and cars, until our side of the road too is blocked. |
I still have five hours, I tell myself. But deliverance comes in the form of a wailing siren and a motorcade transporting a security bigwig. Rifle-toting soldiers are out of the pilot jeep in a jiffy. Cars and trucks which had formed a double line are howled at and made to make way a bit. The motorcade passes and behind it sneaks through our car. I feel I will make it but the dreamy mood that Barapani created is gone. Incompetent India has banished Incredible India. |
The ills of GS Road are commonplace. It is potholed and virtually non-existent in stretches after a particularly heavy monsoon. But more unforgivably, the villain is often an overloaded truck with a broken axle, which should have been retired long ago, blocking the way for hundreds. And on top of that has come the menace of development "" four-laning by the National Highway Authority. It is like a moonscape where this work is on in full swing, covering the stalled cars in thick dust and mocking the desire to escape to the cool comfort of the hills. |
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