Elusive summer
Last week when lockdown was lifted and people rushed to the nearest market place for picking up the bare essentials for their subsistence, at Laban Batti Bazar two senior citizens were caught in a sudden downpour. As they scampered for shelter, one of them was overheard complaining that rain doesn’t seem to leave Shillong. The other person endorsing the view added “we are tired of sitting at home and when we get a break, rain seems to play the spoil sport”.
Nobody really can blame them. They have a case. Almost the entire 2020 was marred by lockdown and rains. And this year, while half the year is gone, these vagaries are in any mood to take leave of us. Not that it rained cats and dogs; it’s a case of accumulation of empty clouds rather than the real shower. In fact, Shillong has been having moderate rainfall last couple of years. Come to think of it, Shillong hasn’t seen summer in its resplendent best. The spotless blue skies, radiant sunshine all through the day with temperature hovering on the wrong side of twenty degrees, all of these are starkly missing. Where is the familiar summer that induces the dashing Shillongites to don the choicest best summer clothes and indulge in licking ice-creams of favourite choices or take the children to the park? Or is Shillong doomed to be an easy pick for paying the price for global warming?
Negatives, positives
During the ongoing lockdown, two words that probably are most uttered — Positive and Negative. Few will disagree that his pandemic has thrown life out of gear and most people are willy-nilly resigned to the negative situation. With burgeoning number of fatalities and seemingly unstoppable number of new cases of infections reported from different parts of Meghalaya, there has to be a natural negativity about the grim portents. All the same, everyone feels positive when test results reveal that they are negative. They also feel positive that life is going on defying the invisible incursion of the virus. However, these negative signals do not seem to affect all people. Yes, lockdown, curfew, SOPs, vaccination anxiety have stolen our liberties away. The life truly leaves a constricted feeling all round. But then there are some citizens who seem to carry loads of positivity in their DNA. They have the least negativity about life’s drastically altered contours.
One such rare person, a resident of Kench’s Trace, and, you guessed it right, is a retired man who makes no bones about his ease of life. This 70-something sprightly man while taking his morning walk flaunts his positivity with all fellow walkers. The man boasts that he has already completed double vaccination course and that he is a stickler for adhering to the SOPs. His real comfort and positivity, it seems, stems from the fact that he doesn’t need to walk a lot these days to buy fish, garden fresh vegetables, confectionery items, eggs and what have you. He points out that unlike normal times when he would be required to go some distance to buy household consumables spending both time and fuel, today, thanks to the pandemic — all of these are available close to his house. The makeshift roadside stalls have made life that much easier for people like him who tend to find a positive side to a negative situation. A habitual fish eater, he says, the fish these days are invariably fresh and certainly reasonably priced, if not cheaper than normal times. Well, his positive outlook is rare and doesn’t reflect the negativity of all those whose life has been torn asunder by the devastating consequences of two waves of Coronavirus pandemic.
Lockdown dilemma
One of the peculiarities of the lockdown is that people, especially the young have switched off their real world activities to the virtual world. Whether they are walking around or are inside their homes the mobile phone/tablet is their constant companion. News travels, including fake news travels fast and furious to become an embarrassment for the people who are subjects of fake news. Sample this: At least two people from this city have been declared dead even while they are alive and kicking. Family members of Bijoy Sangma the mover and shaker of the Ferndale Residential complex and a senior member of the noted Haggai International Institute of Leadership received several messages of condolences. Sangma had battled Covid last year and emerged victorious. But for some reason his friends and colleagues from abroad thought he had reached the afterlife.
On Sunday morning the music maestro of the country, Neil Nongkynrih was declared dead. A requiem note complete with his picture and his name wrongly spelt as “Niel,” a common enough crime in this country (misspelling and mis-pronouncing names and words) circulated with the ferocity of a cyclone, over WhatsApp. The SJ team received too received that message and stirred out of their Sunday reverie. We did the best possible thing which was to call up a member of the Choir (we couldn’t possibly call a dead person could we?) and when we heard her chirpy voice, we knew we had been taken for a royal ride by WhatsApp University. A little later we spoke to Neil Nongkynrih himself who has surprised all with his weight loss regimen – an incredible achievement- and he sounded even chirpier than the Choir member and even announced his forthcoming programme where he is teaming up with a reputed international orchestrator for the next musical journey. The SJ team was stumped!
The Khasis have a belief that those declared dead before their time will live very long, so long that they will embarrass those purveyors of fake news! So long live Neil Nongkynrih and Bijoy Sangma.
All for a jab
There are very few people who look forward to a needle prick but Covid-19 has changed everything. After all, extraordinary problems call for extraordinary solutions.
A jab is now a prized thing, especially for the youth of Shillong. Those who have not been able to book their slots on the CoWIN platform have gone to great lengths and courted trouble just for a jab.
A youth told the SJ that he went to Guwahati to get his first shot. He had to shell out Rs 4,000 to book a vehicle for the round trip.
Asked why he had shown such urgency to get the first shot, the youth replied that he was seeking admission into a university in Europe and needed to get the full vaccination certificate to get his visa.
Another youth had a different experience to share.
Having failed to get a slot anywhere in Shillong, the youth managed to book a slot at Umsning PHC in Ri Bhoi and got his first jab. He was pleasantly surprised that after getting his shot, he was provided with ORS and food at the PHC.
“It was a wonderful experience,” he said, promising to encourage his friends to go to Umsning to get their vaccination.
Yet another noted personality, an actor to boot, travelled 71 km to Markasa in West Khasi Hills for that precious jab. But he was not disappointed as the nurses and doctors were extremely kind and even took selfies with him. Indeed, all’s well that ends well. It’s a case of vaccination adventures all the way…