Non-existent medicine
A doctor in a government hospital scrawled a prescription for a patient. The patient visited every pharmacy in town but could not get the medicine. He asked someone to look for the medicine in Guwahati but was told it was not available.
He then called some friends in Delhi, Mumbai and elsewhere but they too said there was no such medicine. He was told that such a medicine has not been manufactured by any pharmaceutical company as yet.
The man returned to the doctor with the prescription and informed her that he could not get the medicine. The doctor looked at the prescription and realized she had spelt the medicine name incorrectly. The patient should have come to the doctor after he failed to get the medicine in Shillong.
Instead, thinking that it must be a rare one he looked far and wide for it. Doctors’ prescriptions are often illegible but in this case the medicine was also mis-spelled.
Its high time doctors used their computers to write out prescriptions!
Roadside circus
News of the Vice President of India’s visit to Shillong for the NEHU Convocation and also to preside over a Central Puja Committee function led to quick repair of Shillong’s pot-holed roads.
Drivers and commuters suddenly had an easy ride but they all asked themselves how long this quick-fix was going to last. Meghalaya’s engineers are experts at such quick jobs but are nowhere to answer queries when the pot-holes become like volcanic craters.
They say it takes a VVIP to get the roads in Shillong repaired. Potholes at Rilbong Point, Rhino, Civil Junction and State Central Library were all given large coatings of bitumen in the midst of heavy traffic during the day time.
A gentleman said that all this while Government was giving the excuse of rainfall, heavy traffic etc for not repairing the roads. Now we know those excuses are just to fool the public since the PWD can do things when it wants to.
Suddenly even the traffic cops were seen sporting with headgears. The helmets bobbed about like ice cream cones with dollops of white cream on the top.
Gossip extraordinary!
It can only happen in Meghalaya. Overheard that a big shot in charge of the Greater Shillong Water Supply Scheme at Mawphlang has a different yardstick for the water he and his family drink.
Apparently he has a special source from where he gets water for himself and dear ones. They cannot drink ‘shit’ water like the rest of the Shillong population, can they? But like one wag quipped, “Serves us right! We don’t bother who swindles us, who rapes our exchequer, who takes us for a joyride on the Shillong-Guwahati road.
We do not deserve better so just shut up!” Sounds like an angry, desperate outburst but does anger translate into action in Meghalaya?
An MLA who has raised the issue of the malfunction of the GSWWS in the Assembly time and again says he is now frustrated.
According to him Shillong citizens should not be buying water? “Why are we not asking the right questions?” the MLA queried!