Shillong, How I love you!

 

 

Mystic beauty

No matter where I am- Sin city or the Grand Canyon; there will always be one place I would want to come back to- SHILLONG.  Nestled in the North-East, this hill station happens to be my so called home; my haven.  Far from the madding city crowd and all the noise, this one place is peace and beauty personified. I feel fortunate that my parents chose to stay here.  When the partition happened, my grandparents had to leave Sindh, I don’t know how but they eventually came to Shillong.

An evening at Bara Pani

My friends accuse me of being a tour guide and a promoter as I always try convincing them to make their next trip to Shillong. It’s just that I want them to experience the magic that Shillong has to offer.  Here days pass slowly and you actually LIVE your life. When I’m in Bombay, before I even realise the day ends and when I look back and what happened in the day; most of the times its just plain unproductive nonsense.  You can feel your life passing away here but in Bombay, before I know it; I’m a year older.

Speaking in practical business terms, it’s also very easy to obtain monopoly in business here and the market here is elastic and you can turn it in your favour. In terms of education, few of the universities here are globally recognised and there was a time when Shillong was considered the hub of education for the North East.  Also, for those interested in shopping, you get amazing clothes, shoes and bags here and all of it at reasonable rates! People here have a good sense of fashion. You don’t need a Zara or a Vero Moda to look good, you just need to team up your clothes well and have a sense of style and most youngsters here follow that. In Bombay I spend more than 500 each day and here I must be spending 500 in a week or maybe more than a week. Hardly anything is expensive here. You go out for lunch with friends, have the most amazing food and still you hardly have to pay anything. Well, in Bombay; it’s just the opposite.

Yeah! There is no shopping mall here, no multiplex, no disco-shisco but then there is something about this place that will always be absent in city life. Unlike cities, I get to wake up to my dogs barking instead of alarm clocks, I walk in my garden instead of walking the dirty streets in cities, I can go and sit and read by a lake side instead of sitting in a bookshop, I don’t have to catch a crowded train ... I can just walk it up here. I don’t need an Earth day like in cities to go and plant a random tree somewhere, here it’s just an everyday routine.  I don’t have to see hail, mountains or rivers on “reel life”, I can see it in “real life” here.

The Lake just next to my house

Unlike cities, materialism is irrelevant here. My mom cribs that there is hardly anything that she can do here but then 20 days in Bombay and she is already sick of it, eagerly waiting to be back to Shillong. If you’re the quiet, non- socialite, I read and keep-to-myself kinds then listen to me, pack your bags wherever you are and just shift to Shillong. If you do so, trust me- You have probably made the best decision of your life. I am very sure that if you have not seen Shillong, a little bit of your soul will always remain untouched.