Friday, March 29, 2024
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Shillong Jottings…

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Oh! The VVIP visits
On the eve of a VVIP’s visit, Shillong sees a flurry of arrangements, including traffic re-arrangements. Vehicular movement comes to a standstill; footpaths are ‘decorated’; with more than five police officers standing next to a single traffic police booth! These are exercises that tax the patience and goodwill of the citizenry.Normal life is thrown completely out of gear and social media is abuzz with reports of traffic jams in and around Ward’s Lake. Every governor of a Northeastern state is accompanied by a posse of police personnel. This prompted a woman in a bus to comment on the number of police officers manning a single junction (at the Kench’s Trace lane). She mocked the cops as almost all of them moved constantly to stop vehicles shouting at drivers on top of their voices. After a while, the vehicles moved but at Mawbynna (near State Central Library) again a fleet of vehicles were stopped before heading towards Barik. On reaching Barik, vehicles were again stopped.This experience for the SJ team as commuters was a little peculiar considering it was a drill prior to the VVIP’s visit.

And now for the real show!
On the D-Day of Home Minister Amit Shah’s visit the SJ team saw several pedestrians at Rilbong Point being stopped and not allowed to walk ahead. People were seen moving up and down listlessly wondering why they were stopped. This security drill is unprecedented they were heard saying. “Many VIPs have come, seen and stayed in Meghalaya but never has there been such levels of public inconvenience,” they muttered.
Others sat on the footpath chatting and waiting their turn to be released from temporary confinement.
Many that booked cab rides that day must’ve wished that they rather walked as vehicles, reportedly, were made to halt for hours together. But again that would mean taking detours across the city.

The burden
What a burden it must be to have hundreds of kilos pushing down on the age-old chassis. No
this is not a person’s weight we are talking about but a poor vehicle which was so overloaded with goods that one of its tyres couldn’t take it. The vehicle, with a van-like structure, was stuck in the middle of a traffic jam near the Military Hospital when the SJ team caught a glimpse of it becoming an eyesore for all commuters. All heads turned as two of its occupants disembarked from the vehicle in a frenzy to find a fix to the tyre. We spotted the two trying somehow to fix the tyre even as the vehicle tilted dangerously on one side. Half an hour later when we passed the same place, the vehicle had moved because there was no trace of it! Apparently, they found a fix.

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