The recent unprecedented hike in vehicular taxes by the state government has earned huge applause from the commoners who face the brunt of traffic on a daily basis. They say that such an exercise will prevent many from owning a car. But the hike in registration has come in for sharp criticism from some NGOs and new car buyers, , but commoners are rejoicing since they want the pristine olden days to return to the city when cars were lesser in numbers in the streets of the town. A resident of the town said that this is the irony with our nation and state as the government gives relaxation to electronic items and apparels whereas grocery and others eatables are priced higher. The move by the state government is a right step since with increasing road traffic and vehicles, the day is not far when Shillong will only be identified by clogged cars because everyone knows now that it is no longer the Scotland of the East and its serenity is a thing of the past.
Train
A Shillongite was traveling in a train after landing a job in the national capital. He was traveling in Awadh Assam Express that connects Guwahati with New Delhi. Traveling in the 2nd class two tier, this train as is usual with all north bound trains, on reaching Bihar, some rowdies entered his compartment and forcefully grabbed the passengers’ seats. “Sasura tohar baap ka seat hain kaa” they said as they grabbed every passengers reserved seats, said the Shillongite recalling the incident. But fortunately, none approached to occupy his seat in the crowded compartment. Why? Because the grabbers were thinking that he is from China from his tribal appearance. “Don’t hurt our ‘chini bhai’ as he is a guest of our nation,” said one of the rowdies. The Shillongite slept peacefully in his berth throughout the journey whereas his counterparts had to deal with the infiltrators. As the infiltrators pushed and occupied other passengers’ seats, they gave nice smile and even once helped the Shillongite to buy something from a vendor as he is not fluent in Hindi. They even asked him his name and when he came from China. He told them his Khasi name and the Biharis told him that he has a nice name after trying to pronounce it a dozen times. Sometimes it helps to reveal one’s identity even though the opponent has already decided that identity. Appearances can indeed be a life saver!
Directory
The BSNL landline directory is nothing more than a useless document. Designed as a directory for consumers’ landline numbers, it is now seen that all numbers were either surrendered by the consumers or are temporarily out of service. Not more than five to ten numbers works from every page of the directory. The size of the fonts in the directory are so tiny that ones needs a powerful magnifier to go through the them. A BSNL official said that the letter sizes had to be decreased because there has been an increase in the number of customer base. But dialing randomly from the directory, it is quite evident that customer base has rather decreased considerably since none of the numbers are in use. What this state owned firm can do is that instead of mentioning these useless numbers in the directory, they can update their database and can have an easy to handle directory which actually serves the purpose of the callers. In this age of cutting edge technology, nothing is impossible since it is very easy to ascertain as to which landlines numbers are already surrendered and which are not in service. For e.g. in New Delhi, a customer of MTNL does not have to complain when his landline number goes dead as the technology in place is so efficient that it recognizes the number, location and other details of the customer and gets the fault rectified by the linemen. The BSNL should take a leaf out of its counterpart in the national capital and rectify its functioning. .
Mass tourism and M’laya
Some foreign tourists who came here earlier and found some of the tourists locales exciting and picturesque and the local people friendly said that when they returned after four or five years things had changed considerably. The villagers of a certain tourist destination had become very busy catering to a growing clientele of visitors from the rest of India who have no idea of what eco-tourism is. They come, see, eat and leave whereas foreign tourists spend quality time and money in such places. They live there for weeks sometimes and learn to appreciate the culture and learn things from the villagers. Indeed this end of innocence of some of our tourist spots could drive away the high end tourists since word gets around very fast on the internet. It is time that Meghalaya plans a niche tourism circuit not to overexpose some areas and increase the footfalls beyond the carrying capacity!