Shillong’s reading culture
In Nongrim Hills along the main road is a book shop – ‘Bookmark’ that stocks the latest bestsellers both national and international. Its owner Sambha Lamar is an avid reader herself. Book lovers who frequent the place say it reminds them of book stores abroad like Borders where you could sit, read and have a coffee if you wish to. However, the non-descript location of Bookmark makes it a lesser frequented destination. Only those who know visit the store. Word goes around by word of mouth. Sambha wishes there was a literary fest, however modest, in Shillong, so that people, especially the youth become more interested in reading good literature.
Here a queue there a queue
Beeline queues are seen everywhere in the town, now. Be it the MeECL office opposite Main Secretariat, bank counters, ATMs, fast food joints and what have you? People wonder why the Government does not use the services of the Community Service Centres (CSCs) to enable payment of bills without the ubiquitous queue. Funnily even ATMs now have a long line of people waiting to withdraw money, thereby defeating the very purpose of setting them up. For bank customers queues are frustrating. On Friday a customer of SBI Laitumkhrah lost her temper because the man updating the passbook first said the internet link had gone off. When the link was restored he was busy going around sipping tea and showing total unconcern at the long queue waiting for their passbooks to be updated. The SBI customers feel that the Bank staff treat them like dirt almost as if they are doing the customers a favour. Sometimes they wonder whether it is plain lethargy for work or the internet link really goes off.
Unwanted SMSes
Now-a-days mobile users are receiving many unsolicited messages about their having won huge amounts in dollars or pounds. Customers are asked to claim their prizes by contacting Dr Philip on +447-25478668 or e-mail: [email protected]. Many people just delete these messages but some gullible ones try to track Dr Philip from the given number only to be told to disclose their personal details, such as bank account number, PAN, identification etc. to claim the draw amount. The State Police has time and again warned mobile phone and internet users not to respond to these fake messages but greed often gets the better of human beings. Giving bank and other details to some unknown person is potentially dangerous. These details could be used to withdraw money from the account of the mobile phone owner. Mobile companies have also warned against answering to such prompters and asked customers to delete the message since it is not filtered by the spam filter.