If
someone had said all good things would come to an end on this day, I
would’ve given a pat on the lad’s shoulder (kiss on the cheek, if it
were to be lass) and said, I agree with you. You’ll know why at the end
of this post.
Shillong
bade us good bye, but not before making us spend more than hour in the
ill-fated bus, with which problems began even before we got in. The
driver’s 1000hrs was IST 1200hrs. Spits flew hither, thither and
wither. (If you thought people spit everywhere only in Delhi,
wait till you visit Meghalaya or Guwahati. Spitting is a birth right
which you can exercise at any public place, in front of anyone, if
you’re in Meghalaya or Guwahati. Don’t be surprised if someone spits
right on your foot by mistake and wouldn’t apologize). A guy threw up
and refused to clean. People in the bus were too slow even to react or
abuse the guy who threw up and refused to clean. A lorry fell down in
one of the ghat sections while overtaking, holding up traffic for more
than 2 hours. This paragraph outlines how we spent 7 hours which was
supposed to be 3 hours. But this only outlines. It was horrible.
And
finally after what seemed an eternity, the familiar filthy bus stand
Guwahati had to offer arrived. We simply got down and got in at the
nearest decent looking hotel. Sixth floor room was the destination.
I
think it was too pleasant at Shillong and the journey back as we
couldn’t take the “not so pleasant” and the “not so clean” bus stand
and surrounding places. We saw the spits and the unclean things around
and carried that image into the hotel room. We decided not to come out
of the room except for checking out and that’s precisely what we did.
It was the books that caught our attention until we let the books down and pulled the blankets up.