Editor,
Kudos to your editorial titled, “Shillong comes of age, but how” (ST, April 29, 2016) in which you reminded us about Shillong turning 150 years on April 28. Recently, Shillong was voted as India’s favourite hill station and these votes should be treated as the candles for her sesquicentennial birthday. But for birthday cake, she must have shared it with two of her contemporaries, Tagore and Swami Vivekananda both of whom she had close association with.
After Tagore’s sesquicentennial birthday in 2011 and Swami Vivekananda’s in 2013, now it is the turn of their ‘mita'(friend) Shillong’s. In his famous ‘Shillonger Chithi’ (‘Letter from Shillong’) which was actually a poem, Tagore portrayed her innate natural beauty and how deeply he was in love with her. Tagore’s Amit and Labanya met here in ‘Shesher kabita’. In fact the total background of this immortal creation of Tagore was Shillong and through Amit and Labanya, Tagore narrates the blossoming of a romance between him and the nature of Shillong. Swami Vivekananda delivered the last public lecture of his life in this hill-station on 27 April 1901. It happened to be on the eve of the 37th birthday of Shillong.
In his speech, Swami Vivekananda laid stress on the fact that religious ceremonies without deeds were worth nothing. He urged all to enlighten our fellow beings and to help them. He said that those who could afford to go to school should be provided with facilities to learn extensively but those who could not, should at least learn the alphabets. This speech is as relevant today as it was 115 years ago. Shillong is not just a place. She has with her the glorious vibrations of Tagore and Swami Vivekananda. This is Shillong. She longs for spirituality.
Yours etc.
, Sujit De, Kolkata
Mind that camera
Editor,
With the advent of smart-phones we see that it is both a blessing and a burden as well. Although these smart-phones have simplified the means of communication and made connectivity faster with just a touch of the screen, yet in some circumstances they just add to the problems. This is mostly with the phone’s camera. Everyone loves clicking pictures but, this has got way out of hand in recent times. It seems that in today’s world we are quick to take a picture first rather than to lend a helping hand. Be it in an accident, a natural disaster or any other circumstances, even if people are present at the scene of the disaster they would first click a picture rather than lend a hand to the injured. This is because for many the objective is to be the ‘first’ one to post the pictures of such accidents or disaster on social media. This is a very disturbing trend and the bane of modern society.
The best example is when the Vivekananda Road flyover came crashing down in Kolkata injuring and killing several persons. Even during such a horrific accident people scrambled to take selfies with the injured instead of lending them a helping hand. Such persons even competed amongst themselves to get the ‘best shot’. Such incidents reveal that the spirit of humanity is losing out. It is really sad to see that our priority is to get the ‘best’ picture out of a ‘worst’ disaster.
It seems that our hands are faster at reaching our phone’s camera rather than to lend it to the ones affected. Every second is precious during a disaster or accident and we’re wasting every bit of it to get the best shot. The phone’s camera is very much misused these days. Often, pictures are secretly taken without a person’s knowledge or permission, just for fun or for some other illegal activities. One person’s despair is another’s humour as such camera shots can go viral in a couple of minutes. Most of us do not seem to understand this problem which modern society faces today. Yet when we ourselves are in similar ‘trouble’ would we prefer the others to stand there and take pictures or would we prefer them to lend us a hand? Think about it!
Yours etc.,
Banmankhraw Lyngdoh
Shillong-5