Thursday, March 13, 2025

Where time stood still

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By BK Sawian

Twenty four years ago, our capital city Shillong played host to three mega events — two national and one international sports meets. The visitors, who had never come to these parts before, enjoyed the weather. They loved the scenic beauty that nature has give to us in abundance and most importantly spoke of the friendliness of the people who are residents of the city.
In early 2019, a good friend called me and he jokingly stated that we are at the fag end of our “teens” and we must indulge ourselves in the typical Punjabi lifestyle of “khao pio aur aish karo” — for all of us will never encounter the ‘teens’ ever again in this lifetime. He obviously used this metaphor to convey to me the need to get together more often as life is wising by and the year 2019 will be the closure to yet another decade in this millennium.
For me, the Punjabi saying/metaphor had a deeper meaning. A learned retired general of the Indian Army once explained to me the inner philosophy of ‘khao pio aur aish karo’. He had said the Punjabis, and particularly the Sikhs, are an extremely hard working lot and it is, therefore, their entitlement to fully enjoy the fruits of their hard work — and they do not scourge on the toil and success of others.
The invitation of my good friend left me to ponder as to what have been our achievements in the almost 50 years of the creation of our once beautiful state and is there enough reason for us to get together and enjoy life. Have we regressed in life or have we remained static and not moved forward all because of our inherent fear of the unknown? I did question myself and everyone around me.
Here is an editorial penned by an illustrious personality of the letters which was brought out by The Shillong Times in
January 1997, titled ‘Shillong on the equestrian map’ (inset). It makes interesting reading and the internal message in this editorial is perhaps relevant to present day situations in Meghalaya in spite of the many years that have gone by.

(The author is a retired IPS officer and president of the Equestrian Association of Meghalaya)

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