In the land of the 7 sisters : ASSAM

Assam: 14 - 16 July 2006
The result of an extremely successful meeting with NACO DG Ms Sujata Rao ended with me taking the Jet Airways flight to Guwahati on the 14th morning landing precisely 1 hour late. The runway at Delhi always clog and the air traffic always congested aping the ever deteriorating Delhi road traffic. Well, we were welcomed by the Assam Bandh called by the ultra groups. However, the staff of the Dynasty Hotel managed to pursuade an old elderly gentleman an his 1990 Maruti Car 'thank God for Maruti car' to drive me through the wide opened, no traffic roads of Guwahati. Many places has the CRPF and the police peering inside the old trusted maruti. We clang along the road and the old gentlemen driver was brave and care a damn about the bandh and the pot holes. Thanks to this man I managed to reach the Dynasty Hotel. The bandh was total and there were almost nothing on the road but cars, carts, cartons, and cartoons along the roads. The once extremely narrow lanes look pretty wide as there was nothing plying the walkways.

Checkin room #712 when I called Janabi Goswami, the dynamic, beautiful President of Assam Network of Positive People who was a little frantic for my safety as there was no car send from the Hotel which was supposed to pick me from the Guwahati Airport. Well, finally we manage to get a car to fetch Janabi from the hotel's travel desk. I was relieve so much and sighing hit the bed to relax for a while Janabi arrived at the hotel - for we had meeting scheduled with the Project Director of Assam State AIDS Control Society, the Chief Minister in the evening, post bandh session. I the after about half an hour got the message from Janabi that the vehicle had stopped midway to her home as the car ran out of 'gas'. Whew! that was interesting and finally at 4:30 pm we managed another car when I went to pick up Janabi from her home and we move on to finally meet the PD APSACS amidst the rain, the flood.