All Over Town

It’s been almost five to six long years since I had attended the second Brahmaputra beach festival which took place almost after two years after the first one. I had come home for my winter holidays and I got to know about then beach festival from my friends. I was really very excited to attend the festival as I had heard a lot about it from my friends and relatives. I kept insisting my father to take me to attend the beach festival and, therefore, my parents had to.

I was in dire need. Hence, I was furiously flipping through the pages of the Guwahati Yellow Pages (2009) and the Northeast Yellow Pages (2009) a few days back in order to get hold of a phone number of the Tarun Ram Phookan Indoor Stadium. There were around four to five numbers. Or, so I found. I tried dialing up all the numbers which were clearly printed in the yellow pages but unfortunately none of them actually worked. Either the numbers did not exist in the first place. Or no one answered. Either way, it did not help matters for me.

Majority of the people in Guwahati prefer travelling by the city bus because it is cheap, though not very safe. The local city bus charges only three-four rupees from passengers. Travelling by an auto on a regular basis becomes an expensive affair for the middle classes, or even anyone else. If ever by chance you happen to travel by a local city bus make sure that you get hold of a proper seat because the drivers are very rough as far as driving is concerned. There is a probability of you falling down inside the bus itself if you are as unlucky like me. You may even land up breaking your bones or your teeth. But thanks to the almighty no such thing happened to me. Nevertheless, such bad days ironically give you a "good" experience.

I always looked forward to visiting a green place within Guwahati city limits. But there was no such area which I could easily think of and locate it. We were a group of thirtyfive students from my college and we were taken to Basistha for our environmental studies project work. I had heard a lot about the Basistha temple from my parents and was wondering what exactly our teachers were going to show us in Basistha beside the age-old temple. Nevertheless, we all were excited to visit the place. Even though I had been staying in Guwahati for more than ten years, I never got the opportunity to go and visit that area.

It’s been almost two and a half years since I came for my graduation studies to Cotton College, which is one of the most prestigious institutions of Assam. The very first day of my college I noticed one thing — that the students in my college were not very keen at taking care of their age-old college property. The desks were scribbled over and broken, and nobody was bothered to even replace them. Things have been going the same the same way for ages and till date nobody has taken any initiative to do something about it.

Few years back Uday Path, a bylane connected to the Zoo Road was one of the worst lanes in Guwahati. The road was potholed and would turn a muddy stretch during the rainy seasons. There was no proper drainage system and therefore the water could not flow out freely into the main drain along the main road. Moreover, there was always a waterlogging problem in the area.

I still remember that I had my first mobile phone connection done in just one rupee. Reliance had offered connections at one rupee to lure customers. That time all my friends, relatives, neighbours had a Reliance connection. Today, Reliance Communications, or RCOM as it is known now, probably has the largest network coverage area in the Northeast. But as far as the service is concerned it will be wise not to comment anything because the customer care people here are always busy attending calls. Few months back I was using the Bol India Bol plan of Reliance because the outgoing calls were free to any Reliance customer for around a month in just Rs349. In fact all my friends had Reliance connection and some of them are still using the connection and the plan till date.

Whenever I happen to cross the Zoo Tinali area or the Chandmari area I find that the drivers mostly stop their vehicles right before the zebra crossing or on the zebra crossing itself. I wonder whether they actually know what a zebra crossing is for. I still remember the day when the automatic traffic signal was introduced for the first time in Guwahati. People just didn’t bother to stop at the red signal for the police weren’t present. They were only concerned about driving on to their destination. Then the traffic police decided to control things manually because they knew that they will never be able to stop the people from running away after being hauled up for a traffic violation. If they would let things go the way it was going, it may have become become worse.

That day I had gone to Mirza (some 6km from Borjhar airport) with my parents to see the ongoing construction of my father’s engineering college. While taking a stroll around the campus area I happened to meet Tupai Kalita, the supervisor at the site. As I was still chitchatting with him a young woman with a barely-one-month-old baby came to him to collect her daily wages.

From the day I joined Cotton College I always encountered with a new young face who finally takes up the “begging profession”. This “profession” seems to be quite a common activity among those below the poverty-line here in Guwahati. Earlier, I used to find only old women or men begging. But nowadays young children are being pushed forward for begging because they can earn much more than the elders. Few months back I was walking down from my college towards the Panbazar area when a young girl, not more than five years old, followed me until I reached a bookshop. I was so overwhelmed by my emotions when I saw her tiny little foot without a footwear of any kind. I offered her ten rupees even though I am very much against the concept of offering money to beggars.