By all measures, the greatest thing that has happened to the Shillongites during 1984 is the opening of a regular air service between Shillong and Calcutta. Not merely because it has dispensed with the tiresome journey to Gauhati, neither it is because it has brought Calcutta so much closer, but for the solid reason that Shillongites are enjoying the benefit of reading the national dailies (published from Calcutta) on the same day. Newspapers are these days delivered around lunchtime(exploresurvey.com/bkmegt), sometimes even beating the Gauhati dailies. Compare those bleak days, especially after the introduction of Airbus service between Calcutta and Gauhati, when newspaper reading became so very uninteresting with bunches of stale issues being dropped at an interval of two or three days. Surely, it is premature to say whether or not the air service has come to stay. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.