I took a big step by deciding to leave the metropolitan life that I'm so fond of, and coming to my home state - to a place with less avenues, yet people with a more helpful nature. Like any other place, there are plus and minus points of being in Guwahati that the last 24 hours of mentally accepting to be a part of this city has brought to my notice. I'll start with the positives:
- The city is sweet. Because I know the local language, and have so many relatives in the city, there's always security and assurance that I won't get lost anywhere or that people won't exploit me. Everything safe is just a dial away.
- There's Uber and Ola, so if you wanna skip the city bus traffic and discomfort, there's that luxury for just an extended budget.
- Home is an overnight journey away so I know that I can keep going and checking in on the old folks any time I want or any time there is a need.
- The food options here are quite nice and in line with the eastern palette. No more craving for juicy momos and settling for rubbery, overpriced ones; or yearning for Chicken thali and Kaji Nemu and making do with average food and the regular chota nimbu. Food in restaurants is, by and large, cheaper than the bigger cities which again is a BIG plus point, especially for students.
- Things are comparatively cheaper if you know how to live. If you chose to travel by city bus, eat basic homely food, spend less on posh stuff, then this is the perfect place to save money. Although all these apply to any place, this statement is keeping in mind the price difference.
Now coming to the downside which I now see and hope to overcome in the near future:
- I don't own a place here. So I gotta rent a place and that is not an easy thing to do especially in the absence of apps like NoBroker that let you set your requirements and look for a place accordingly.
- If you don't know how to ride a car or scooty, or if you don't own a personal vehicle then daily commute has the probability of soaking up all your productive energy (no metros or local trains here, just the city buses, e-rickshaws or Tata Magics). But yeah, good music on earphones helps. I also feel, carrying a book for a light read, or having meaningful podcasts on your earphones could be a nice way to utilise the commute time. Ofcourse the ultimate time-killer - talking to your parents, siblings, friends, or partners on phone tops this list!
- You can't say KELA out loud like you would in other cities of the country and world without being judged for randomly and loudly uttering the official swear word of the state, and that too being a lady! So yeah, no fun like that. Also, since most of the people you interact with are probably gonna be L1 Assamese speakers, there's no excitement of teaching KELA and other curse words to non-Assamese speakers ( a delight I thoroughly enjoyed during my time at Bangalore and Hyderabad). But this isn't really a downside, this point is really just for me!
- People are judgemental and narrow-minded to a great extent. Although Guwahati is the biggest, most populous and most developed city of the state, our people are yet to evolve out of their gossipy and judgemental mentality. This is not a generalisation but the reality of the vast majority. Perhaps by the time our generation becomes the oldies in town, things will get better, cause my generation and the ones after and just years before us are pretty open-minded, accepting and chill. I make this comment after having enjoyed and admired the anonymity that city life brings!
And a few general downsides include pollution, and traffic. However, I'm here for at least 5 years and if destiny makes it happen, then perhaps for even longer. So I think it's in my best interest to try and see the good in this city that I'll now call 'home.' Guwahati has always been a vacation destination for me. I've only come here on my summer and winter vacations to spend time with the paternal side of the family.
Growing up, I visited Guwahati multiple times but my visits were limited to home visits or prolonged stays at my Uncle's house in Beltola. As a college kid, Guwahati became the transit hub - I would come to Khanapara or ISBT to board my buses to Duliajan. Guwahati was the midway where I would change vehicles from Shillong to my hometown, and so, exploring Guwahati wasn't that readily available an option. There were a few times when I visited this city to hang out with my friends (this was during UG), but even then I was a pillion rider, an uber-dependent and ignorant traveller, or simply a guest who was taken care of by the others. I never felt the need to be on my own ever in this city. There has always been someone or the other to show the way or hold my hand.
Through my travels through life and places, I've learned that attachment to a place is strongest when you know the place well and can confidently travel alone in it. This hasn't been the case for me in Guwahati so far and perhaps that's why the city hasn't grown on me in the last two decades. But I think beginning my PhD here would serve as the ideal space for me to acquaint myself with the ways of this city. Guwahati is the Mahanagri that so many of my friends are genuinely fond of. It's the city that witnessed my father's glorious youth. I think it's fate that I'm here alone and in my twenties, walking the same streets that my father had once walked on as a guy in his twenties! A guy from a lower-middle class family in Nazira once stepped into this city with eyes full of dreams, and he left with so much! Today, here's his youngest child struggling to fulfill similar dreams! Life has come full circle. The question now is, will there be a mutual acceptance between me and the city?
The answer will probably be here in this page, some years down the lane, in the form of my memories and yearnings. But the hope that these memories will be those of fondness, growth and mirth is strongest now than ever before. It's 6:30 in the evening now, I'm sitting at this cafe called Quick Pick in Silpukhuri (entered to enjoy the AC vibe and ended up having a delectable Chicken Roll and Masala Cola), I spent 3 hours in the city bus going and coming from the University today. Room hunting on foot is no piece of cake. I'm exhausted but happy that the first day alone in the city hasn't been so bad after all! Here's to new chapters in old places....to adulting and struggling for the cause of the bigger picture! Here's to beginning life as a research scholar!
