Editor,
It is with deep sorrow that I pen this letter. The loss of lives due to landslides and drowning during the unprecedented heavy rains in the last few days tells us that climate change due to human intervention has come to roost. In Meghalaya, people cut down trees with no concern at all and in place for forests we now have homes built on very weak structures. No one inspects the houses that are built to check if the foundation is according to specifications. Meghalaya is already in the red zone as far as vulnerability to earthquakes is concerned. It is important that homes are built on strong foundations but we see more and more high rises without adequate reinforcements. Each time there is heavy rainfall, some walls collapse and cause injury or loss of lives. Why is the Government not strict with building rules despite all these repeated calamities?
On the way to Nongpoh just after the Umiam Viewpoint on the right hand side some person has done some earth-cutting on top of the hill. As a consequences the soil has loosened and is sliding down on to the main road (as reported in ST Sep 26). There was traffic disruption on account of this massive landslide. Just because land belongs to private individuals does it mean that those individuals can do whatever they like without any civic accountability? Where is the District Council and the Dorbar Shnong of the area? What about the Forest Department which is supposed to regulate the cutting down of trees to prevent soil erosion? Nothing seems to work in our state. Every institution seems to connive with the land mafia in the state! This is not done.
We urgently need a citizen’s group that will look at all the violations in environmental conservation norms and take such violations to court. We cannot have government institutions that turn the other way when the rich and powerful violate all environmental norms and are given permission to build without taking into consideration the lay of the land and the consequences that arise out of reckless earth-cutting.
Yours etc.,
Riskhem Nongrum,
Via email
Behavioural change
Editor,
Apropos the report on appropriate behaviour to battle the pandemic as laid out by the Indian Institute of Public Health, Shillong (ST Sep 24, 2020), wearing a mask apart from health hygiene and social distancing helps keep Covid under control. Why then do people violate this golden rule? It’s common to see three people walking together without any distancing and two of them will be wearing masks while the third one is without a mask. This idiotic behaviour is seen everywhere and we cannot expect someone to enforce the protocol. The public have to learn to obey and respect the protocols, to prevent infection to oneself and others. I wonder when people will learn not to take this pandemic lightly.
Yours etc.,
RD Lyngdoh,
Via email
Save Shillong’s fair name
Editor,
Apropos Janet Moore Hujon’s piece on “Barik—more than a bus stop” (ST Sept 25, 2020), I must stay that she really knows how to do plain talking. I like the way she argued her case for preserving the old image of Barik complex, including the suggestion to retain the outdated road roller as a museum piece. She has hit the nail on the head when she asked “why kowtow to Delhi?” I also share her analogy about “heart of the city”.
The purpose of this letter is to share my agony about how Shillong has deteriorated beyond imagination. I was born in Shillong during the British era. I have seen Shillong as it used to be and what it has turned into today. Because of inhospitable social and political atmosphere, I have migrated from my dear birth place. Today, I live far away and often recall the golden days in Shillong and feel extremely sad. In fact, my heart cries for Shillong. I had been to Shillong last year after a gap of twenty years, and was shocked to see the clutter of new buildings, some most grotesque, quite inappropriate for being referred to any more as the “Scotland of the east”. It seems the political masters are indifferent about the image of Shillong. They are too materialistic in their thoughts and actions.
As an old timer, whose heart still lives in Shillong, I would appeal to the government not to do anything to make Shillong a concrete jungle.
Yours etc,.
T.K.Bhattacharjee
Via email.
II
Editor,
“Barik—more than a bus stop” reminds me of my college days. We used to take a city bus ride to my college at Don Bosco Square from Barik, pay 15 paise for the ride with two short stoppages in between at Malki and Dhankheti. While returning home we would take the same route. My ears still ring of the loud announcement by the conductors ” Barik”, “Barik”—-telling us to alight at this stop.
However, I used to wonder how the place acquired that name. I came to learn from an old Bengali resident that the name “Barik” is a distorted version of the term “barrack”. He told me that during the Second World War, when allied forces joined the British, a contingent of US troops landed in Shillong. They had to be accommodated somewhere, and the British masters chose this place to build shacks for housing the troops. The shacks were called “barracks.” And hence the distorted name of “Barik”! I hope somebody will do some research and establish the authenticity of this story.
Yours etc.,
Samar Bijoy Gupta,
Via email