Blogs

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. One thing which truly surprised me was when I saw a small shanty area...

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. This continued for almost ten long years. Even after repeated complaints and letters to the PWD department nothing truly happened. Finally, the tenants and the flat owners of the Tenement Apartment decided to repair the road all...

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...

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...

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. Kalita took the baby in his arms and said, “She is Geeta (name changed) and her mother had bought her in just five hundred rupees when she was just 2 days old.” I was taken by shock when Bhashwati (name changed), the woman...