Shillong a city of defiled posters
Stained posters, be they of a Bollywood flick or that of model showing the 32 pearls for one commercial or the other, are so common in the city that it is difficult to spot one which is within human reach and without a mark or two upon it.
They look like advertisements saying, “Spit on me.” Is it the natural instinct of homo sapiens to destroy everything seemingly perfect or the craving to inflict miseries that lead to such aberrations. Whatever the reason might be, someone somewhere derives sadistic pleasure from such (mis)adventures as painting the white teeth black or even worse, put red stains derived from Kwai to leave an indelible mark on the freshly put posters.
The stranger part, though, is that not many are spotted in the act and the blame for the ‘idle man’s fancy’ rests on the unknown. The idlers also seem to be in love with the (in)famous four lettered word that is found inscribed with great zeal in walls across the city. As it has always been, the forbidden seems to be the norm here. Are we a city of rebels?
Bicycle for water-cycling
The University of Technology (UTM) which is mentored by the University of Petroleum and Energy (UPES) based out of Dehra Dun regularly sends its students on exposure trip to the mentoring/University. This time the students came across a unique experiment in the automation centre.
They were introduced to a bicycle designed to be used in water. It is mounted on tough plastic jars and has been known to do quite well on water. Some of the students who are from Assam said that the bicycle would do very well in their State as it can be used to remain mobile during the floods. When even Guwahati city gets waterlogged after a heavy downpour such cycles could be a life saver.
Traffic Police on holiday
Shillong’s Traffic Police who otherwise work long hours facing the pollution from vehicles head-on, got a reprieve from their duties during the dawn to dusk bandh called by the Coal Miner, Dealers and Traders Forum on August 6.
Several junctions such as Fire Brigade, Malki and Nongthymmai had no traffic cops perhaps because the guys knew that people would respond overwhelmingly to the bandh and would not venture out with their vehicles.
Perhaps many more bandhs would give the traffic cops some time to heal their respiratory tracts. It must be awful breathing in polluted air and facing the heat and dust of a highly polluted city. When is the next bandh? Any bandh callers please?