By Ellerine Diengdoh
The air in Shillong has the consistency of a tired dream—thick with the smell of pine needles and the silent chill of a city that has forgotten how to breathe. I sit in a chair that doesn’t quite fit my back, listening to the tenor sax of Stan Getz… it sounds like a man sobbing into a silk handkerchief.
As the “Season of Love and Miracles” settles over the hills, I find myself thinking about Santa Claus. When you strip away the red velvet and the bells, Santa is revealed as a capitalist snob. He is the patron saint of those who already have everything, checking a list that has nothing to do with “kindness” or “goodness”, but everything to do with “credit-worthiness”. He is a seasonal deity who only lands on the roofs of those who have long since forgotten the taste of hunger.
To the tourists, the fairy lights look like a celebration. To me, they are just a way to decorate a skull. I have noticed that the divide between the rich and the poor is no longer a line. It is a gap so wide you could park a fleet of water tankers in it—if we could find one that wasn’t a hallucination brought on by chronic dehydration.
This divide is a physical weight, most visible on the streets. I watch the hawkers—shadow-people who once inhabited the pavements—being replaced by a superior species called “The Car”. This metallic beast does nothing but sit in the sun, smugly reflecting the light of a God it doesn’t believe in, yet it enjoys more legal protection than a grandmother trying to sell bits of vegetables to survive.
While the poor are squeezed off the pavements, everyone is being squeezed of moisture. I read in the papers that the city is “grappling with a water crisis”.This shutdown is perhaps a state-mandated experiment in biological evolution—an attempt to see if we can evolve into cacti… solitary, defensive creatures who find nourishment in their own bitterness. So, for Christmas, I’d like the water to stop grappling and start flowing. It is terribly hard to wash one’s hands of the world’s rot when the tap only offers a dry, hollow cough.
Then, the darkness. I want electricity. I know I am being greedy, but electricity is quite useful for seeing things—like the wall you are about to merge with because it’s pitch black by 5:00 PM. “Load Shedding” is apparently a local tradition, like singing carols; but instead of “O Holy Night,” we sit in the dark and swear “O Bloody Hell”.
Instead of water or light, we are given “Concerts”. It is a fascinating distraction. The infrastructure is melting, the taps are dry, yet we debate about which man with a guitar deserves our last bit of oxygen.
While we are jumping to the bassline, who is learning? I look at the schools; they are shells. I know our children would like a school where the roof stays on the building—a low bar, perhaps, but one we haven’t cleared. It is a fascinating system, egalitarian only in its misery. We send our children to learn from unpaid teachers about a future that was sold off before they were even born.
Perhaps that future lies in “New Shillong”, the sequel. Shillong 1.0 is buffering at 90%, so they are downloading a new version. It is terribly optimistic—like buying a new pair of socks for a man whose feet have been amputated.
To get there, however, we need roads. But the PWD, the PHE, and the MePDCL behave like three jealous siblings fighting over the same patch of ancestral dirt. One lays the tar—smooth, black, beautiful—and the PHE immediately hacks it open to lay a pipe that will never hold water. Then the MePDCL, feeling left out, arrives a day later to dig a new crater for a light pole that will only illuminate the blackout.
Naturally, I assumed the cure for these woes was simply money. I asked a local where the government keeps the stash intended for “Infrastructure and Other Luxuries”. He pointed to the public coffers. I expected to find gold; I found a vacuum instead. The money has undergone a physical change called “sublimation.” It turned from “Public Funds” into “Private Assets” without ever passing through the liquid stage of “Building Anything Useful”.
So, here we are—caught between a concert we can’t afford and a pipe that won’t flow. We are the only people on earth who can be told the coffers are empty while standing in a three-hour traffic jam of luxury SUVs. But hey, it’s the Season of Miracles.
I’m going to go sit in the dark now. If the universe wants to speak to me, tell it to bring a flashlight and a bottle of mineral water.
Merry Christmas to you, and to the potholes!
