Republic Day in Guwahati

I honestly don’t know if any bandh was called in Guwahati on the account of Republic day but this region of India has hardly seen any celebration on this day. Usually a boycott is called for by innumerable organization threatened with dire consequence and people choose to stay at home and laze around.

 As of me, I was lucky on this 26th Jan’13. My entire family went out for a short distance outing and we had a good time, and yes, we are safe of course safe. It is the people who can bring a change. Let any organization boycott the Republic Day celebration but the vast population of people should not. People of this region are Indians and governed by the Indian Government so why to support any such organization whose motive mainly lies in disrupting peace?

Republic day or any National day must not be restricted to Institutions and Government offices but to each and every home, each and every street.

The picture at left show some young boys cheering up the Republic Day celebration and at the right, a deserted street, typical as if a curfew has been imposed. We need more like the enthusiast in the left picture and change the image of the right picture in future.

City Bus Drivers in Guwahati -An observation

I’m a regular bus traveller in Guwahati but I usually avoid the seats near the driver because it’s hot in there and secondly the noise inside the cabin is intolerable to my ears.

Never the less, I had to sit in one of the seat near the driver’s cabin while returning from a market in Guwahati and following are my observations of the bus driver.

1. Horns from behind, horns from side and horns from left side too. I guess there is no one compared to these Bus drivers who has to hear irritating and continues honks each time they are on the driver’s seat.
2. Beside horns, they are used to hear those voices from behind like ‘rokhai diok’ or ‘rokhabo’ meaning ‘please stop (the bus)’.  Now the bus cannot be stopped at the middle of the road but errant passengers won’t understand it, they just want the bus to stop wherever they want, in case it does not happen then the driver is verbally abused.
3. The policeman comes in at the third. In this city, traffic police personnel (or any other police) can stop a bus wherever they want and fine the driver for being this and that. There are various ways (guess it) in which the bus driver has to get rid of it.
4.  Traffic Jams?? Everyone on the street will blame buses for this, passing by drivers of bikes and cars will pass lewd comment to the bus driver and drive away.

So much they bear and we never indemnify them. We also say the conductors are ill mannered, but ever realized how frustrated they remain doing the only task of collecting money and counting it the entire day?  

Be honest at the bus, pay the right fare always and don’t argue unnecessarily with the conductor or the driver. Let us live up to our virtue 