Shillong....a place that I cannot begin to describe and if I dare venture describing, then I cannot imagine ending that description, for it is a place that has given me countless memories, innumerable life lessons, lifelong friends, excellent education, precious teachers and a million reasons to keep going back to it every time I feel a burden in my heart and weakness in my knees!
I first came across the idea of writing love letters to cities when I used the hashtag #loveletterstoacity on Instagram and discovered that what I hoped was my innovation has already been an established practice on the web! I guess, that's the demerit of being born in our day and age - no idea remains unexplored!
As per Google, I am a Gen Z kid, but I'd argue that there are traces of a millennial in me and whether or not that is true, I leave it for you to decide. But as I begin exploring the 'Add Page' option in Blogger, I cannot help but try my hand at writing love letters to the cities I've been to, and the places I've seen. This list of places that I hope will remain inexhaustive over the years, has to begin with the first city I called 'home' after I left home. My first love letter has to be to the Scotland of the East, the land where clouds kiss the sky on any given day, where pines and cherry blossoms fill the air, where steaming momos satiate one's evening appetite and Jadoh quenches one's hunger, the land I fell in love with...SHILLONG.
Since I've initiated the debate of me being a Gen Z with millennial traits, it's only fair that my love letter to Shillong is filled not only with anecdotes of my time there but also a lot of pictures taken there. A modern-day digital love letter is incomplete without images, so here begins my excavation through my hard disk in hopes of reigniting emotions felt during the three years of graduation from 2017-2020. It's already been three years since I left the city and naturally, life has gotten hectic and complicated thereon - it's not every day that I can go back in time and relive my cherished days at Shillong, so bear with me, dear reader, this love letter will be written in parts, perhaps never to be complete, perhaps with hopes of never having to end it or say goodbye! Khublei Shibun for embarking on this journey with me! Happy reading!
I. When left alone...
Twelfth board results were declared just a day or two ago, it was decided that the family won't be able to afford education in Delhi at this point. I was asked whether Guwahati and Cotton would be to my liking. Grades weren't a problem, my heart and the picture of college life I had on my mind was. My answer was a big no (although now that seems like a good option that I might as well have considered). Nothing else remained, Shillong was the best bait. Just close enough to home that an overnight journey could take me there and just far enough so that it would at least take 3-8 hours to get home or anywhere near it.
In the eighteen years of life that preceded this day, not many places were seen, definitely not a hilly region. The hills and clear skies of Meghalaya, on the Guwahati-Shillong highway mesmerized me from the moment we left Khanapara. The three-hours spent on the road gave me many merry thoughts and images of different probabilities flashed before my eyes. The feeling associated with being a primary character was slowly beginning to take on me and I was loving every bit of it.
The entrance day was beautiful because I had my father, childhood bestfriend and her father, and a cousin of her's for company. All three of us sat for the entrance at Edmund's and fortunately, all of us made it! Spontaneous and futuristic that he is, my father befriended a decent-looking lady from the admin office who happened to own a girls' PG close to the college, and just like that, my admission and accomodation were both settled.
Within a week's time, classes were to begin. A quick trip home was made to fetch my belongings. Having left home for the first time in 18 years, I packed almost everything I owned, assuming that I won't be coming home as often and that I'll end up creating a mini-home in the new city - Shillong.
13 June, 2017 was the day when me and my father set out to Shillong from Guwahati, early in the morning. I had atleast 7-8 bags, including a mattress and other essentials. We reserved three seats in a Swift Desire and undertook the journey. The city was then experiencing its usual rainy summer season, hence a sharp breeze adorned the entire city. People wearing light jackets and carrying an umbrella became a marker of the season I was to anticipate in this rather cold and serene part of the country.
It was decided that my father would drop me at the hostel and leave for Guwahati by 3-4 in the afternoon. This meant that we had to get all the essentials like buckets, mugs, an almirah and other minor things between 11-3. It was a rather packed day which neither left me enough time to mourn my separation with my family or admire the pristine beauty of the city I was to call home for the next three years. The rains didn't help much in speeding up the settling process either. But my father is a rather efficient man and he did his duties quite well. By 4, we had said our goodbyes. I cried a little and I could tell that he too was affected by the fact that the troublemaker won't be around to sing loudly or annoy everyone all the time.
The first few hours without parental supervision, and the realisation that no familiar face was around left me a little silent, fearful and anxious. But slowly I began owning up to the role of taking care of myself, and being accountable for my actions. From managing social conduct to the bank account...these weren't necessarily skills that I was explicitly trained in but I rose to the occasion and endeavoured to make the most of my time there. Although I was assigned a roommate, she was someone quite my opposite, in the sense that she would frequently go home, was terribly dependent on others for the slightest of inconveniences and under-confident to undertake any adventure beyond going and coming from college. A look at my IG feed will tell you that I'm the exact opposite - a free spirit, bold enough to conquer whatever challenge life throws my way. We were good friends but never close....my first night at the hostel was spent alone because she was yet to reach.
The next day was the first day of classes. I remember wearing a greyish denim jeans, a black undershirt, a checked shirt, and sneakers to class. I owned a bright orange and navy blue backpack back then and a purplish black umbrella...with these two for company, I set down the Motinagar hill to college at perhaps 9-9:30 in the morning. A shocker that I got in the morning was that rice was the breakfast at the hostel- there would be no lunch, and dinner would be served directly at 8 pm. So basically, someone used to a 5-course lunch for 18 years was suddenly brought down to a no-fixed lunch routine and I remember being rather perplexed about it. Several other technical problems came along the way, like water scarcity at the hostel, an unclean common washroom, incompatible roommate and so on but gradually, I learned to find solutions to all of these. Today, if you see me getting furious at someone who leaves the tap running while brushing then know that it's a reaction to the trauma from my days at Shillong where every drop of water was precious and preserved with great effort to be scantily used in emergencies!
I'd like to talk more about my transition from an unsure and naive school kid to a mature and responsible college kid but that's the journey every individual undertakes in life. My love letter is dedicated to Shillong and here, I cannot not mention how the city embraced me and gave me both moments of solitude and sweet company, how it was cool but never cold, biased but never unwelcoming, underdeveloped but not without opportunities and just....flawlessly mesmerising!
[This is a work in progress]
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