SILCHAR TO SHILLONG

It was the 28^th of November 2009, 1:00 AM. We had just come out of the marriage hall where Asish, the boss of me and Nitin was marrying his sweet heart Mohua. Our actual plan was to leave for Shillong immediately. But as we were entering the hilly-weather (and road) beaten Sumo Victa, one of Asish’s relatives advised us against the night drive. He explained how treacherous the route was.

The first reason he cited was the condition of the road, which was bad. Second, he said that people taking this route in night generally get escorts and the vehicles go as a convoy.  He added that at this time of the night or early morning which it actually was, there would be no escorts. The reason why an escort is needed is the possibility of robbery en-route. When we heard about the robbery possibility, everyone had their respective beds in the hotel in mind rather than the rock hard seats of the hill-rover.

So it was decided that we shall leave for Shillong which was some 250 KMs from Silchar at 5:00 AM. Keeping the conditions of the roads in mind, Asish’s calculation was a 5 hour drive which cannot go more than another half an hour in the worst conditions. So it was settled and I, Nitin and his wife Seema were secretly thankful to the relative uncle of Asish as we can catch up with some much needed sleep after some 40 hours of continuous journey from Bangalore. Always a lover of sleep, I was very happy for the 3 hour bliss I could steal before the trip.

I shared the room with our super-boss, i.e., Asish’s boss, Anant. A very systematic person that he is, he set the alarm for 4:00 AM and promised to himself that he’ll get us out and going at 5:00 AM. So it was Anant, I, Nitin, Seema, and one of Asish’s friends Bijay who were to go to Shillong. I went to sleep as soon as I hit the pillow as I wanted to get as much sleep as possible.

As we are sleeping, let me give you an idea about the “hill-rover” Sumo Victa I talked about earlier. This was the same vehicle which picked us up from the airport. To be frank, I have never travelled in something like this ever before. My first impression of this vehicle was that it reminded me of a customized mud racing car which is stripped off its interiors, but minus the metal braces they generally have. Probably this Sumo was not supposed to overturn, hence the negation of the internal braces.

When one sits in the last seat of the Sumo, you feel as if you are a few feet too high off the ground than normal. Later I found out that it was due to the extra shock absorbers they need in the rear for the hilly roads. The wheels were completely bald, the reason I found out later was attributed to the numerous curves and the conditions of the road. Somewhere into the trip, one of the drivers – yes we had two of them – told me that the Sumo in which we were travelling was very new and it was just a year and half old. I was dumbstruck – literally – I couldn’t think of anything to say for some time. And the baldy tires were some couple of months old. It made me wonder what would the late Jamshedji Tata – may his soul rest in peace – have to say about this.

The 'Hill-rover' Sumo Victa

Now back to the hotel! Well, I was having a wonderful sleep as I had found a decent bed after more than two days. But the enjoyment was short-lived. Anant woke me up on time. I always hate the way time flies in the night – well, whenever I sleep for that matter. Thankfully Anant volunteered to get ready first and that gave me the hopes to steal a few more winks. At last we were up and ready to go by 5:30 AM.

We had our luggage covered and strapped securely on the top carrier of the Sumo, and set forth to Shillong. Both the drivers were in the front seat, Anant, Nitin and Seema took the middle and the last seat, which I found to be the most stupendously adventurous, was shared by me and Bijay.

After a few kilometers, I had started to doze off and partially heard the driver saying something about the bad roads. That reminded me of the first reason the relative uncle had told us. We fed the Sumo with diesel and moved on. By that time I was on the verge of stepping into some distant dreamland when I was rudely woken up by a jolt. I felt Anant was again waking me up, but then realized it was the Sumo’s turn this time.

The driver was saying something about a 15-20 KMs stretch of “SUCH” bad road. All of us were shocked. I was saying to myself – “Road? This guy must be kidding! I can see no road!” It was a path wide enough “bad road” the relative uncle and the drivers had mentioned was a big understatement. I again thanked this uncle for stopping us earlier.

The jolts that the Sumo was giving were made the last seat journey feel as if we are making it in a washing machine. It was a rude reminder of one of the rides in Wonderla called “Insanity”. Sitting in Insanity, one would feel as their limbs and torso were being thrown about in such a fashion that they would come apart any moment. It was fun as that was a ride for few minutes. But the same thing for a couple of hours or more was the real “INSANITY”.

The drivers told us that this was a very important connectivity between Assam and Meghalaya and the government of Assam hasn’t cared to even turn and eye on this part of the state for the last couple of years. We all felt very bad seeing the condition. To make the situation worse, there was mockery on the roads. The well planted signs in good condition saying – “Speed Thrills But Kills” – and so on. When people hear are doing rides worse than a camel back ride, these mocking signs really hurt.

A couple of hours and some yelling joints (of both the vehicle and our bodies) later we managed to cross the “Bad Road” stretch. After this stretch, we found tarmac. The roads were numerous times better after that and we were nearing Meghalaya and we could in fact see the country of Bangladesh to our left. Then we reached a place which sounded like “Sohnapur” (I don’t remember the exact name of the place) where there was a tunnel built and a river running beside it. The water was bluish and seemed very fresh.

We stopped to take a few pictures. Some good snaps did come out. Then one of the drivers said the story behind the tunnel. He said the tunnel was very recently built – not more than 4-5 years ago. He said the particular point was very dangerous during monsoon as there was the danger of landslides. And during the monsoon, the gentle beautiful stream nearby turned to a bubbling river with strong currents. There was an instance when some 5 years ago as a passenger bus was passing the region, there was a bad landslide when a big chunk of the hill came down taking the bus along into the river.

Calm and serene beside the tunnel

The life saver

The current was so strong that the whole bus was swept away. None of the passengers survived and their bodies were retrieved in Bangladesh, where the river leads to. It was after this mishap that the tunnel was built. This story put all of us into silence. Probably an intuitional moment of silence for the lives lost..

We slowly understood the danger in the route. A few kilometers from here we entered the ghats of Meghalaya. It was a beautiful drive. We were slowly wondering if it was one way traffic as there was no traffic from the opposite side. It had been sometime since we saw anyone passing us from the opposite side. The driver said something about hearing a rumor about a jam ahead. Within a few minutes we saw the jam. A huge queue of trucks, buses and LMVs were there. We overtook most of them as there was no opposite traffic and managed to reach the epicenter of the jam.

We learnt that a truck carrying coal had overturned and lay in the middle of the road. We learnt that this mishap happened at 10:00 PM last night. Hearing this, we all knew that it was time for us to thank the relative uncle all over again. It was 11:00 AM in the morning and if we had started as we had planned, we would have had to be stuck in the jam. We saw the plight of the people who were stuck for all these hours without food and water. It was a pathetic situation. It was another 3 hours before we could move again.

Thankfully since we were very near the spot of mishap, we wriggled out of the jam as soon as a little space was made by hours of struggle by two military trucks carrying light cranes.  It was an eventless journey from then on with just a maddening crowd and equally maddening roads (but it never could match the 15-20 KM stretch) at a place called Ladrymbai (hope I spelt it right).

We reached Shillong after a journey of more than 12 hours. Even if we negate the 3 hours wait in the jam, it would have easily taken us at least 9 hours. We still wonder which route did Asish intend us to take to cover the distance in 5 hours… Asish, it’s for you to answer. But yeah – the stay in Shillong was worth the trip. Thank you Asish, for all the wonderful arrangements. (For pictures on shillong and cherrapunji, visit – http://picasaweb.google.com/sgkiron/NorthEast27thNovTo2ndDec)

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