Down the memory Lane

By Parag Ranjan Dutta

Sitting in my Bangalore home when I close my eyes I dream about Shillong, my sweet home, which has nurtured and sustained me throughout. The city has grown from Yeddo to Shillong which did change a lot from my younger days, an absolute must for any urban growth. Captivating nostalgia still haunts me. English poet P.B.Shelly aptly said “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.” This narrative is the story of revisiting Shillong.

Khasi Hills came under the British with the submission of U Tirot Singh, Syiem of Nongkhlaw, on January 9, 1833. The British made Sohra or Cherrapunji their summer capital. But the climatic conditions and facilities did not make the British happy. The search was on for a drier place north of Shillong Peak which lies in the rain shadow area. One day a British team reached a small farming village, where they encountered the local people. It is believed that when the people saw the British approaching the village someone said ‘La Wan’. Since then the village came to be known as Laban, sourced from La Wan which can be translated to ‘They have come’.

It was Col. Hopkinson who was pleading with the Government of Bengal to shift the headquarters from Gauhati to Shillong on strategic and political considerations. The Bengal Government then asked Capt. Rowlatt, the Deputy Commissioner of Khasi and Jaintia Hills to prepare a detailed map showing topography, altitude, climate etc for the proposed site of the district headquarters and the new capital. A detailed topographical map was also submitted by Major Edwin Rowlatt for developing a road from Gauhati to Shillong. A committee was formed in 1862 which suggested Yeddo Valley for the headquarters and the British army personnel.

Shillong was made the Civil Station in 1864. Shillong was then known as Yeddo or Iewduh, the market place of the Syiem of Mylliem. Colonel Hopkinson did not want to retain the name of the new Civil Station as Yeddo because there was already a place known as Yeddo in Japan, which is present-day Tokyo. He preferred to name the place Shillong, after ‘Lei Shyllong’ God of the Khasis who is believed to be residing in the Shillong Peak. The old name Yeddo was replaced and finally, the name Shillong was accepted. Thus Shillong was born in the evening of the 28th of April, 1866, the brainchild of Col. Henry Hopkinson, as a refuge from the sweltering heat of the Assam Valley, for the staff and officers of the East India Company. In all probability, shifting was not done because of the climatic conditions at Cherrapunji alone. Along with the strategic location another reason, which might have promoted the British was the Jaintia Rebellion of 1860, which was led by freedom fighter U Kiang Nongbah. The uprising was the fallout of the imposition of house and income tax by the British on the Jaintia people. It was rather difficult to quell the rebellion from Cherapunji because of its location.

It was necessary to acquire the land for the new settlement, from the Syiem of Mylliem, which was finalized by Lieutenant Colonel J.C. Haughton, and was smoothly executed, and which cost the British a sum of Rs.8433.00 for 2499 acres of land. The amount includes Rs.1000 paid to the Syiem of Mylliem for the removal of the claim for the land acquired in future.

After Shillong was made a Civil Station in 1864, immediate movement of staff and military personnel was not possible because there was no road to from Gauhati to Shillong then. The strategic and political importance of Shillong was appreciated by the Bengal Government and it was decided that a road be constructed from Gauhati to Shillong. Major D. Briggs was given the charge to supervise the construction work. For long this road came to be known as Briggs Trail, where people used to walk on foot and which is now known as G.S. Road. Ponycart services between Shillong and Gauhati, alongside the bullock carts were introduced on November 6, 1867, by Golam Hayder and Sons.

When one fine morning Golam Hayder and his son Kossimuddin started their epic journey from Hatpukur village, Janai Road, Hooghly district, near Kolkata towards an unknown hill, hardly they knew that the family would leave an imprint in shaping the destiny of Shillong to certain extent. The father-son duo came to Goalondo, now Bangladesh, by train from Kolkata. From there they reached Chatak of Bangladesh and crossed many beels (huge water bodies) and reached Therriaghat, close to Bholaganj, in the foothills of Assam, now Meghalaya. Their gruelling journey continued. From there they travelled to Cherra on foot. From there they reached Shillong on baskets carried by porters.

After the establishment of Shillong civil station Golam Hayder opened a departmental store, a first of its kind, in the midst of a forest in present day downtown Shillong in Police Bazar, where now stands the Bijou Cinema. When Golam Hayder and sons got the mail service contract along the Briggs Trail, Golam Hayder’s younger son Elahi Baksh also was one of the signatories to the contact. Kossimuddin Mollah owned about 80 pony and 20 bullock carts. Interestingly two terminal stations of this service were near Bijou Cinema in Shillong and Cotton College of Gauhati. Horse driven pony carts or tongas used to leave Shillong from near Bijou Cinema early in the morning and end their journey. It took nearly nine hours to reach Gauhati. For bullock carts it was a gruelling journey for three days to reach the destination. The road was unsafe with the onset of night because of wild animals. Besides the pair of bullocks needed some rest. There were stables and resting places for passengers for the night in crude huts. The next morning another pair of bullocks was used.

After the establishment of the civil station, a serious problem, which possibly no one could imagine came up. It is about the source of drinking water. Around that time Chrinoline Falls, near Lady Haydari Park, was the only source of drinking water. Another small source, a spring, near the D.C’s office was accidentally discovered by a prisoner from Jaintia Hills, Jismat Chyne, who was brought to Shillong jail was given the job of digging a place near D.C’s court. Suddenly he found water trickling out from the hole. It developed into a small spring. The place was excavated and developed by Col. Hopkinson to store water which was known as Hopkinson’s Tank for a long time. The planning for the construction of a lake at that site was envisaged by the Chief Commissioner of Assam Sir William Erskine Ward by putting a dam on the northeastern side. The construction of the lake was done by Col. Hopkinson under the supervision of Executive Engineer Fitzwilliam Thomas Pollock, the person who designed it. Many locals still call it Pollock’s Lake or Nan Polok. Sir William Erkskin Ward commissioned the lake in 1894. Hopkinson’s Tank was reborn and came to be known as Ward’s Lake.

Under the Bengal Municipal Act of 1876, the villages of Mawkhar and Laban were included under Shillong Station. When Shillong station was constituted in 1878 it had only five words like European Ward, Police Bazar, Jail Road and the suburbs of Laban and Mawkhar. The Syiem of Mylliem Han Manik Singh was opposed to the inclusion of Laban and Mawkhar. Shillong Municipality got it’s full fledged status only around 1910 under the Bengal Government Municipal Act of 1884.

As they say Rome was not built is a day, so as Shillong. The journey of Scotland of The East shall continue.

The author was the former Head
Department of Geography, St. Edmund’s College
Acknowledgement- Ahmed Hossain, Prof. Late Dr.B. Dutta Ray
(This is the first part of a series that will continue in the coming weeks)