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Guwahati through my pigeon hole

Guwahati, the mystical end point of Indian civilization, so contrasted to the standard of the Hindi speaking and pan chewing minority that the vastness of this place is all but dwarfed in the ridiculousness of the stereotype casts. As any effervescent Xbox playing 11 year old would say: LOL NOOB!! 

Juxtaposed in the flood plains of Brahmaputra, at the foothills of the throne of clouds, unchanged and persisting through the long lost time and fables, Guwahati hits you with a force. The force is not like the bratty Brahmaputra which, unlike Ganga, does not smother you to sleep by toxicants, instead will come at you with a carving knife of Tibetian flood waters, its fury unabated, but I digress, this is not a story embalmed by a creature of Tennyson’s era, this is my spot light on what an idiotic, immature boy living on the gold coast of India feels about living next to a mythic river. Of course a town and a paying job are just a bonus.  Oh, but no wide eyes for me. It is more of a tired, skeptic, experimental and anxious kind, but more on that later. Back to force. I mean Guwahati. This city will creep up on you with the various idiosyncrasies it holds. Sundays are literally off. Good pork, available pork, east Asian cuisine, pork, cheap food, surprising proliferation of pav bhaji, did I mention pork? Life is slow. Things are slow enough to affect even the common business practices. It’s like people are on a permanent dose of lite. 

People want to run away from here. Lack of that speed is perhaps what pushes them to move away from here. Guwahati is the gateway to the east and I can see how that problem manifests both. Till the time people are not assured of security from the insurgency, capital will fly away from this juncture.

This is the first time I am facing power and water problem in a city. I would have believed that such problems were taken care of by the march of civilization (cue sniggering from that bratty 11 year old). And the devil listens, cue power out. 

I wonder what it takes for people out here to conduct businesses on this frontier. Lack of knowledge, fear of outside world, comfort of the ghetto styled communities they live in? yet everyone is latched to their TV sets, mobile screens, taking pleasure in the mundane to ease the pain of monotony. 

The city is undoubtedly beautiful but the severe simplicity of people catches you off guard. Enormous trust and weight is attached to the said word. It is even more than the western provinces of Punjab and Rajasthan. Guwahati is therefore a mixed bag. See, even though a bit of solitude is required for writing stuff, the LCD of my ARM powered assistant beckons, engages and dumps me. Repeatedly. I swear it’s a device coproduced by Devil. 

Then comes the sojourn to Shillong. On the flimsiest excuses and proposals, my flatmate/Anshul and I were sent to Meghalaya, the most touristy place in India for business purposes. Even the entire cast of Saturday Night Life would guffaw at this “just the tip” event. Police Bazaar made multiple stops in my itenary yet only in the evening was the halcyon day of Shillong shattered by the tremendous masses that descend here. See thing was, the Immature boy had found an oddly unstable comfort zone in Guwahati, so life threw him a Shillong. Vertigo is a condition for strong people with problems of looking down from heights and other biggies in life. Obviously none of those strong chaps had visited the roads of Shillong, they would probably have vertiga or something. Pretentiousness is a strong trait of the stupid immature boy you see. Back to story: A picturesque lake complete with swans and lotuses in between a traffic congested area. Striking vivacious complexes on par with Crawford markets and sarojini bazaars of India. Then boomerang back to Guwahati.

This place is one of learning and the very ground demands to tell its history. How I learn is a facet I wish to examine post my graduation from this area. Till then, I feel fly (the stupid 11 year old goes ROFLAMO ). TL;DR: Guwahati Okay okay, me dumb dumb, now me open eyed, me go WOW.
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Location: Guwahati, Assam, India

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