SHILLONG: Meghalaya on Saturday lost a bright young scientist to COVID-19.
Banteilang R Syngai, a senior geologist of the Geological Survey of India (GSI), arrived at Shillong from Kolkata on July 5 and was under quarantine. He developed acute pain due to calculus cholecystitis (gallstones) and was admitted to NEIGRIHMS that same evening.
Although Banteilang tested COVID negative at Byrnihat (rapid test), the RT-PCR test at NEIGRIHMS found him positive. He was kept in the isolation ward and given conservative treatment. On July 16 and 17, he tested COVID negative. According to doctors at NEIGRIHMS, the viral load must have gone down by then so the patient tested negative.
However, on July 18 Banteilang developed sudden onset of respiratory failure. His condition worsened and he developed respiratory and cardiac arrest. He breathed his last at 11.56 pm on Saturday.
Hailing from Mawlein, Mawkhan Ri Bhoi district, Banteilang was born on June 29, 1980. He completed his BSc from St Anthony’s College, Shillong and his MSc in Geology from Jadavpur University. He joined GSI as a geologist on June 2, 2008. He was posted to Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh, had two tenures at the Shillong office and two tenures in Kolkata where he was still serving as senior geologist.
An ex-Deputy Director General of GSI, Sabyasachi Shome, who was earlier posted in Shillong and Banteilang’s boss, knew him personally. He was the first to put up the news in a GSI Facebook page about the demise of his colleague.
Shome said Banteilang was extremely soft spoken and a thorough gentleman. He was friendly and very helpful towards his friends and colleagues. He was known as a good geologist and worked in some critical projects in Northeastern India.
Banteilang died a bachelor. He is survived by his mother and two sisters one of whom is a nurse in NEIGRIHMS. The family had constructed a house in Mawlein, Ri Bhoi District.
Colleagues of Banteilang informed that he was detected with gall bladder stones in Kolkata. The reason he wanted to return to Shillong was to be with his family for his treatment in Shillong but as fate would have it he breathed his last in his home state, never to return to Kolkata.
A resident of Dibrugarh, Gaurav Kakati spoke to this correspondent and said he had met Banteilang who was doing some work around the area during his North East tenure. Kakati said he was a soft spoken, genteel young professional and it’s a pity that he is gone too soon. “GSI will be poorer with his departure,” Kakati said.
Senior geologist Biplob Chatterjee who served in the GSI office here in the 1980s says, “Though there are quite a few geologists from different parts of North East India there are very few geologists from Meghalaya and even fewer in central organisations like GSI. Banteilang was one of those and was known as an extremely bright geo-scientist in the fraternity. His loss is irreparable.”
