It’s been 50 years since the ‘Himalayan Blunder’ of 1962 when the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) unexpectedly rampaged into Indian territory and reached the outskirts of Tezpur in Assam before making an unexpected retreat. The war was fought much before I was born, but being born into North East India, I heard a lot of [...]
64 years later, Shillong is virtually unrecognisable. I could only recognise the Governor House on Bivar Road, then known as Government House, the characteristic Ward’s Lake and the Assembly House (destroyed in a fire on January 9, 2001). These photographs from Government of India’s Photo Division were taken when Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was on a [...]
(This post is cross posted from my blog Pixelated on IBNLive.com) Summer of 2001. Bhopal. Bharat Talkies. Dil Chahta Hai. A decade later the experience is still as fresh. On that overcast afternoon, I stepped out of the theatre with a heady head. I had just witnessed something phenomenal. The last time I underwent something [...]
It was an altogether different age, when having a telephone at home was a status symbol. And the waiting list for a new phone connection was sometimes years long. It was also the time when there was no pulse for local calls (at least in Shillong), it didn’t matter how long the call was, you [...]
The first Bengali, as recorded, who came to Shillong was the successful trader Golam Haider, who was the supplier to the Raj in Cherrapunji, the district head quarters. he established his ‘Golam Haider and Sons,’ the only departmental store in the centrally located Police Bazar in 1878.
Today is Mahalaya, the day of invocation of goddess Durga in her Mahisasurmardini form (the slayer of the demon Mahisasur). The beginning of the ten days of festivity.
This advertisement for Grasim’s Graviera Suitings is one of the rare occasions when Salman and Sangeeta appeared together professionally.