North East India: 1954

I first came to North East India in 1954, but as I write, it is 2008, 54 years later. 54 years in the other direction would take us back to 1900. In my imagination that early period seems much longer than the mere 54 years that have rushed by while I've been watching. Can North East India possibly have changed as much in the last 54 years as I imagine it to have changed in the previous 54?

In 1954, it was already possible to fly into Guwahati from Calcutta, and probably from Delhi. Buses already stopped for a rest at Nongpho on the way to Shillong, so that first-time visitors from other parts of India had the chance to be astonished to see Khasi women, rather than men, presiding at the shops and stalls that lined the road. Shillong was the capital of Assam, then. Assam was a larger state then than now, but Shillong was a smaller place. I don't even remember taxis in Shillong, certainly not the long lines that we find today. Arunachal was still NEFA, and I believe Gauhati University was the only one in the North East.

My family and I lived in the Garo Hills for most of the two years we spent in India. Even Shillong was too far away for a visit except on the way in, and again on the way out, when we had to deal with paper work.