My! My! National Highway 44
Ah! Our miserable, deplorable forty four
Seeing your plight my heart runs sore
A life vein of Shillong to Guwahati
Orphaned, tortured to extreme, what a pity!
It is the only highway with sadly time for no entry
Taking transport system back by one full century
It’s width remains unchanged since World War II
Tortured by overloaded trucks beaten black and blue
With the late monsoon its condition turns worse
For every recently commuters felt its deadly curse
Broken into two a mile from Jerobad
With no authorities whatsoever it to attend at
So that 17th August turned to that scenario
That sadly took place sixty two years ago
A partition caused exodus, people moving to and fro
The only welcome difference peaceful, a smooth go.
Those pony carts, those bulky luggages of bygone days
Now on trolleys rolled many a colourful suitcase
For the less privileged steel trunk quite heavy
But what to do, they need to reach their destiny
An old lady sweating by the bus rear window
Counting the hours when traffic would by an inch go
A worried mother used a newspaper to fan her baby
As the mercury stubbornly sticks to 42o C.
For air and railway passengers a wasteful day
Especially with non refundable fares how to pay
But friends these sad events would drag on an on
For we tend to forget them just before election.
They boasted of plans and disaster management
When natural disasters (God forbid) would strike now and then
What happened that day is a stark reminder
That we won’t be able to make it whatsoever
Wake up my friend do not bother to hear
To those disasters, global warming no need to fear
Just hang on and count one, two, three, four, five, six, seven
When disaster strike all good children go to heaven
(if at all there exists such a place)
- Wandell Passah's blog
- 1366 reads
good job maheh. get a dig at the politicians, especially our big fat sickly lapang.
riskhem
Only those who frequent the highway understand the pain and agony. When travelling for business or pleasure from shillong to Guwahati you are never at ease until you cross Khanapara. The overloading trucks, the long trucks loaded with steel or cars all are frequent sight. For a distance of 90 kms., you will find at least four to five truck in strange position, overturned by the side of the road I wonder why our leader don't feel for the ordinary man they represent. While you see a lot of activities in Assam there is "lahe lahe" "suki" "suki" in Meghalaya. Oh Meghalaya you are so poor that even your begging bowl seem to have a "hole". The poem is meaningful and it gives the experience of a daily traveller. (Sylvanus Lamare)
An old lady sweating by the bus rear window
Counting the hours when traffic would by an inch go
i extracted these two lines to represent the pitiful state we are in.
moving by an "inch" seems so appropriate a description of the speed of motion (speed? ha! got you there! and, motion?).
and who suffers? the helpless, needy and old-fashioned (commoner). how? by using the popular means of transport.
take the "rear" window! the population's bulging now. so is greed and negligence of the law. the passenger's invariably pushed to the back (read "where it is unpleasant/congested") in the stuffed up commercial vehicles. by the side of the window or elsewhere, you just have to sweat it out!
just the thought of having to travel the nongthymmai-PB route is now potent enough to cause some sort of allergy! one can't help but count the hours (hours--NOT minutes!) while moving "inch by inch". and to have to go nongthymmai to nongpoh!! we all do get allegic now!
better hum along a tune to ease the pain 'cause no remedy is likely to come by soon: "sweat (a-la-la-la-la-long)"/along with the inner circle for you reach nowhere near any outer circles!
worth going through! thank you for an elegant coverage, mr passah.
--RR
indin@rediffmail.com