Maiden of the mist

The years roll by without giving too many opportunities to ponder over the changes that are taking place around you. We just move from one bend in the road to another, happy to reach the necessary domestic and professional milestones of our journey.

Along the way, the greying hair and the changing numbers of our reading glasses often obscure the loss of pleasures and happy thoughts. Trapped in the concrete jungles of the present, we are busy building even higher walls separating us from others. Sometimes, though, one happens to stumble into a long-forgotten path to catch a fleeting glimpse of what was and wistfully wonder of what might have been!

A recent trip to Shillong opened up some closed windows to let in a rush of cold but comforting air from the past. As the car turned and twisted its way along the wide new highway from Guwahati, my thoughts turned to a happy youth spent in the Scotland of the East as I strained my eyes to catch glimpses of familiar sights. Nongpoh, the midpoint between Guwahati and Shillong used to be a welcome stop for travelers for a hearty meal of rice and chicken. But now the car sped past it before I could spot the old eating joints or the small pineapple stalls. Driving past the great lake of Barapani with pined slopes around I did cross the old bridge which was still carrying the burden of countless vehicles on its ageing shoulders.

Checking into the Pinewood Hotel, its old-world rustiness was not lost on me. As students we would often walk past it not daring to enter lest we get caught and thrown out! Now it stood alone like an old dowager sniffing at newbies like Polo Towers. Its cottages and cavernous breakfast room may smell of time gone by but in a city cramped for space this was an ideal antidote for weary bones after a three-hour hill drive.

Just down the road from Pinewood is Ward's Lake. Legend has it that it was once drained of all its water to retrieve a ring of the daughter of the local British Governor. Over the years it has become more known for its little boats and wooden bridges surrounded by slopes and trees. A signboard at the gate now informs that morning times are reserved for people with passes and general entry is restricted to ticket holders — a far cry from the old days when it was littered with lazy visitors like me who freely wandered around its water bodies or stared at the resident fish from the bridges.

Just beyond Laitumkhrah before the road starts climbing towards Happy Valley, there used to be a football ground opposite Wood's Garage. It attracted large crowds of standing spectators — some of them no doubt more interested in catching a glimpse of the pretty girls who often stood at the gates of the nearby cottages! The matches themselves used to be intense affairs between local teams and were certainly a harbinger of the many fine players that emerged from the North East in the coming years.

Laitumkhraw was dotted with small eating joints which had wooden benches and tiny cabins where poverty-stricken students could gulp down the infamous local brew called Lal for Rupees two per glass and spend the next few hours vomiting it out! Further down towards the main city there was ABBA which served homemade Chinese food but no alcohol. For that, one could go to the famous EC restaurant next to the equally well-known Kelvin Cinema. One of my lasting memories of a not too well spent youth is that of standing on the table of the restaurant with Sudipto Das and Aselie Pusa holding up glasses of rum mixed with cigarette ash and singing Hotel California as our farewell ode to college life! Then, it had seemed a fitting tribute to a city where almost everyone was a singer and guitars hung in every house like family portraits!

Kelvin was a tiny hall specialising in English movies. Their popularity and the Hall's limited capacity meant that getting a ticket from the small hole in the wall that served as the box office counter was a battle of titanic proportions often leading to torn shirts, bruised faces and frayed tempers. But the pleasure of watching a movie from its popular side balconies was hard to replicate. Alas, both EC and Kelvin have disappeared into the mist of passing times.

Of the other cinema halls, Anjali was known for screening the latest Hollywood and Hindi movies and had the added attraction of a second-hand winter cloth market next to it where many jackets and windcheaters have found permanent owners after reportedly passing through numerous other flea markets and owners across the world! Bijou and Dreamland were and are still holding sway in Police Bazaar. Just as you entered the Police Bazar Lane housing them, stood a couple of newspaper stalls where one could get the venerable Amrita Bazar Patrika from Calcutta one day behind the Indian standard time.

A favourite haunt was the State Central Library which was and probably still is one of the few Indian libraries holding hard bound Herbert and Jenkins editions of PG Wodehouse. I had spent many a humorous afternoon browsing through these priceless books and borrowing them to read at leisure.

The inscription on the gate of the Shillong Club tells a story of its own spanning back to more than a hundred years, a history few other clubs in India can boast of. Along with Ward Lake, it remains a storied reminder of the old times when life was slower but steadier.

I could not but help notice yet another Shillong legend which has survived albeit with a few concessions to modernity and wireless mobility — the gambling game of Teer which literally is played with teers (arrows). In almost every nook and corner of the State there are small wooden stalls with a blackboard where each evening the two winning numbers are announced and the hopes of just about everyone are either dashed or realized. During my college days it was a ritual for many of us to interpret each other's dreams and based on whatever myths or legends or uncommon sense that inspired us, we would predict the two numbers and bet as little as one rupee for a possible winning of eighty rupees if both numbers were correctly predicted! Our hopes were always buoyed by stories of neighbors who had won unspeakable amounts and got into the lucrative taxi business!

That's the Shillong I remember — the Maiden of the Mist. Now you see her, now you don't like the lady luck which pierced many a hopeful heart with a thousand teers every evening at the Archery field of Polo Ground.

Views expressed are personal