By Avner Pariat
One of the constant sources of belly-aching that has been doing the rounds in Shillong, for quite a while now, involves the issue of traffic congestion in the capital. You cannot escape (try as I might) the daily complaints about the situation here. We have gained notoriety for the constant jams and endless stream of honking. I get very bored listening to the cribbing but unfortunately it is everywhere so I just have to suck it in. There is a lazy resignation that comes from people when it comes to remedying this problem and it is typical of their attitude to other socio-political topics that plague us as a society. Currently this government has hired a firm to sort out the traffic snarls and we hope that goes down well but there are many things which we can do as residents of this town. We need not be so lackadaisical.
Firstly, to parents.. please bus your kids. I know that you love your children and need to be with them all day. Some of you might take voluntary retirement and sit in with your children in their classrooms if schools allowed it. But let us be realistic. Aside from the younger ones who really need to be supervised properly, pre-teens and older ones need to be given more responsibility and you can foster this in a small way by allowing them to get on the bus and finding their own way home. Currently, many SPTS buses are rotting in Mawblei and Mawpat, why can’t we demand that they be re-serviced for school duty? It doesn’t make sense for 20 cars to drop 20 children when one bus is enough to do the job. The children of servicemen have army trucks which come pick them up daily (in front of the Grotto Cathedral) and that has been going on successfully since I was a child myself. Bus your kids, people, don’t let Rosa Parks’ hard-work go to waste.
Aside from government buses, many of these schools – which contribute greatly to the traffic congestion – should also have a bus service. Bloody hell, most of these tax-exempted, religious cabals don’t spend a penny on facilities for their students and what they charge people as fees is tantamount to extortion. Is that fair? We must demand that they address the mess that they are also a big part of. Just in case you’re wondering, I was personally not signed up for the bus service as a child but we did car-pool. One car would drop 5 or 6 of us. This is also a much better idea than what I see happening today. I loved car-pooling because I could joke around with my cousins and friends before the rigorous day ahead in the classroom. What’s wrong with making that a normal occurrence?
Right, and the other thing about this whole “school duty” that parents engage in. I wonder if there can be a study done by the government on productivity levels of various departments throughout the day. I am pretty certain that those levels would drop drastically from the time period of 2 to 4 pm. Many office workers go missing during this time because they have to pick up their kids from school. They over-extend their lunch breaks and it hurts us who have work with them. It is nearly impossible to meet anyone during these hours. Maybe this should be looked into closely.
I usually walk everywhere and in pre-Monsoon days, Shillong is a lovely city to walk around in. However, this doesn’t seem to be something people think to do. I have to draw a bit of attention here to people who get into cabs from Jaiaw Pdeng to go to Motphran. What are you doing!? Walking through Madan Student, under the pleasant jacarandas, up into Motphran takes all of 5 minutes. One doesn’t need to sit in a cramped car for 15 minutes to pay Rs 10. This is your town, walk it, enjoy it. People who don’t walk about don’t see the reality of Shillong. They can claim to know this and that but honestly a fuller picture comes out only when you’re down on the ground. We can talk of the “streets” but what do you know of them unless you’ve walked them? Bad and good, it’s all there.