The capital of Meghalaya is overtly cosmopolitan on one hand and deeply-rooted in tradition, on the other
On March 27, I was again driving on the Guwahati-Shillong route. It is a path I have taken at different points of time for well over three decades. I have been caught in avalanches on this road and at least on one occasion, had to spend the night in the car. Compared to that, this ride was bliss: A smooth road, a great vehicle and good driver. Shillong-ride almost looked like the ride to a twin-city from Guwahati.
Much has changed and much has gone un-recognised. Many of us have become the intellectual heirs of Katherine Mayo, the author of the infamous book, Mother India. It gained criticism in the 1930s because of its negative portrayal of Indian life, so much that even the British had to ban it. That’s another story.
Being in Shillong has always been like being at one of my homes. Shillong is overtly cosmopolitan and inwardly deeply-rooted in its tradition. The city get its name from U Blei Shyllong, the presiding deity of the Shillong peak. It acquired prominence because of it being a summer resort and sometime summer capital of the then Assam.
In retrospect, it seems funny but I have, almost, in all visits stayed at the Pinewood Hotel in what is now Suite Number Six. Those who know Pinewood Hotel will recall that it was set up in 1898. A veritable institution in its own right, it keeps reinventing itself. To me, it is symbolic of what Shillong stands for but the story will have to await another narration.
I arrived in Shillong to the news of a rally for Garoland datelined March 27 from Tura. It talked of June 30 as the day in Tikrikilla (in the west Garo Hills) when it was supposed to happen. The rally was to be spearheaded by the Garo Hills State Movement Committee. The movement asks for an inclusive Garoland. In this era of semantic jungle, God bless the use of the word ‘inclusive’ even in clearly well defined movements for identity.
I was determined to pick up optimal numbers of clues on current and under currents as possible. The list was large. I tried to cover almost everything that time permitted from the Ramakrishna Mission Anthropological Museum which would be about 50km from where I was, to Thangkharang Park which had a rare specy of the Pitcher plant. For those who chewed in late, Pitcher plants are a rare carnivorous plant.
I included Mawlynnong village in the itinerary to see for myself what this part of the world boasted as the ‘cleanest village’. I found time to visit the BSF post and the Dawki Point which had the check post for Bangladesh.
The overpowering impact of the environment as I walked to spots of the midnight mass preceding Easter Sunday and waded into the crowds of Easter Sunday was one of a vibrant upwardly inclined community. The issues are many but nothing looked beyond the domain of sensible application of the mind.
There is, of course, a gap to be bridged between the fad-prone modern jargonese and the action-oriented traditional approach on environment. Typically, the modern environmentalists talk of community-led eco-conservation whereas the Khasi-Pnars talk of keeping ‘law Adong: lawkyntang’ and in some cases even ‘law Shnong'’ or ‘law Kur’ in entact. The objective, of course, remains preservation of biodiversity.
Protecting the aquatic life, say in river Myntdu, appeared equally important. Yet, strangely in the Jaintia Hills, three of the major rivers are dead. There is a clear need to bridge at times mutually inclusive approaches of the modernist conservation movement and tradition-based peace-with-nature way of life.
This may not be the best place to get into the details and the nuances of this debate. But so far as this this writer can make out, there is no university or education system in the state looking at including these traditional approaches in the curriculum or its teaching methodology.
Clearly, there are huge distances to be covered. But then these issues of sustainability need, first and foremost, consensus on the essentials of redressal of the damages already caused. At the moment there seems too much struggling for space.