The rib-tickling posters, banners
Do you ever read the countless banners and signboards surrounding you everywhere on the streets of your city? If you do, have you ever come across interesting words and their spellings imprinted on the banners and signboards? Sometimes, the uniqueness of these spellings/words are smart, a quirky wordplay to catch your attention in a humorous yet harmless manner.
Sometimes though, the same ‘typos’ could be amusing to the point where the message intended isn’t the message imparted.
The SJ team set out on a venture to observe interesting words and spellings on banners and flex boards in and around Police Bazaar, and what followed next was an endless observance of signboards, banners and fliers.
In this jotting, we scribble down some of our findings as we leave to our readers the sweet pleasures of casual observation.
‘Fusion ensembel’ — a gorgeous rectangular flex banner in purple has been attracting a lot of attention around Shillong Club. And the reason behind it is the ‘ensembel’ of fusion it offered to its onlookers!
‘Taxe extra’ — A big ad board near Centre Point cautioned its future gym members that along with their 6 months of membership fee, there would be an additional payment of ‘taxe extra’.
‘Wholeseller and retailler’ — A large crafts shop in the same location boasted their exhibit of cane, crafts and bamboo by announcing themselves as the ‘wholeseller and retailler’ of these products.
‘Fooding and lodging’ — This is a usual suspect, but more than one hotel in PB extended fooding and lodging facilities to the weary travellers to Shillong.
‘Obey the traffic ruls’ — A Good Samaritan on a red pick-up van alerted his fellow drivers on safe driving as we saw it passing down the GS Road. How, you ask? By obeying ‘the traffic ruls’, we presume.
Cold comfort
Two months down the line since winter season officially descended on Shillong, perhaps it will be in order to assess “how cold has winter been this year”.
Every winter Shillongites are wont to say “it has been the coldest winter this time”. But to tell the truth much of the bite of winter is the feel factor.
How do people perceive the ferocity of winter? For the same mercury reading of 16/6 degrees, the westerners will embrace winter as “benign”. Not the Shillongites.
While December by and large had been sunny, and consequently the intensity was tolerable, the same can’t be said for January.
Almost the entire new year has been quite awful. With continuous absence of sunshine, days have been intolerable. This was not helped by the intermittent showers and occasional hail storm.
Shillongites’ endurance power came under increasing as sun remained hidden behind a thick gloomy cloud cover.
Many a citizen frustrated by this vagary, turned to the Weather App on their mobile phones. But there have been no signs of letting up.
However, the brighter side of bitter winter is that so far the minimum temperature has not gone subzero.
Thus, Shillong has not seen frosting, a quintessence of winter here. But given the unusually long sun-less winter it has been, such a small mercy can at best be termed as “cold comfort”!
Man-animal conflict
On Sunday at about 9.30 pm, Dr Diganta Das, an anaesthetist, and his son were coming from Guwahati. On reaching Marten (Mawlai), they sighted an animal that looked like a leopard 
lying in the middle of the road. The driver had crossed the spot when Dr Das and his son told the driver to turn back and see the animal from close quarters and check if it was still alive and if they could help take it to a veterinarian. They were shocked out of their wits to see a leopard cub that might either have been run over by a speeding car or been killed by someone and thrown on the road.
This might be the first instance of a leopard being seen so close to human habitations.
On speaking to a wildlife official, the SJ team was informed that leopards are actually very secretive and like all other wild animals go out of their way to avoid humans.
However, they are extremely versatile and can live close to humans and adapt to living in urban areas feeding on garbage and even pet food.
In India wolves, leopards, hyenas, foxes and jackals also do the same and share space with rural Indians. However, most of us urbanites believe that leopards only live in deep forests.
It is possible that the leopard might have been killed for eating up livestock like chicken. “Killing a cub leopard is heartbreaking,” Dr Das and his son, Rohan, said.