It's barely been 48 hours since I left home and already I've crossed so many state boundaries I feel like a fugitive on the run!! To be very very honest I don't think in my sleep deprived state I would have ever been able to tell one winding road from another had it not been for one of those Eureka moments where your brain groggily wakes from its slumber (So fine!! I'm not Archimedes, you know!!) and says, "wait, I thought Guwahati was in Assam... and... and Shillong... well ...
wasn't..."
So OK, I'm not very... umm... updated... ahem... in my North-Eastern politics... however, I do believe late is better than never... so there. So here I sit, having combated the absolute mayhem of Guwahati's streets (which, by the way, is Assam's capital... though trust me you'd never guess!!) and it occurs to me that a city's roads really speak volumes about it! And not just in the "my-god-the-municipal-corporation-here-really-must-make-a-lot-of-money!" way.
Now I'd always been a believer that roads and traffic pretty much anywhere in India remains more or less the same. It's a part of the national feeling that is India,you see. But it seems I was quite mistaken. There is more to the story...
For instance here's what an average street anywhere in Guwahati looks like... to begin with, as all Indian roads, it's imperative that all forms of possible things on which human beings can travel must be on the same road at the same time. And, of course, like all self-respecting citizens of this socialist, secular, democratic republic we the people vociferously demand our due... especially when unneccesary! A road WILL be not a square inch over 4 feet wide but there will be all of the biggest vehicles sold in this country that demand their legitimate space on it ("Tere baap ki sadak hai kya???"). And, of course, nobody will give an inch and Everybody but everybody will honk and protest angrily! By the time you get through all of that you feel like much the poor road must. ...
Now in Shillong I notice a very different... and I must say not unhappy phenomenon unfold. It's a saturday morning, the clouds have slowly drifted on to the road and settled down much like moody cud-chewing cows would, anywhere else in India. As for the human population... well, it seems Shillong moves in the back of taxis... only. There seems to be hundreds of these little black and red Maruti 800s that dot the winding streets of the hill city, each one, without exception, filled to bursting - and each one seeming to tell its own story. While in most you'll find sassily dressed teeneagers packed like a can of... well... very stylish sardines; there'll be a slightly lesser number of those that hold just as "closely-knitted" families. And there's ALWAYS a traffic jam; a miles-long line of patiently waiting little motored lady-birds... and nobody EVER honks and if they complain they must do it very very softly... It's almost incredible and endlessly fascinating to me as I sat in one of these interminable ques waiting for whatever divine force was causing the jam to just give. ...
