Editor,
It was time for my wife to deliver. We knew this because her water had broken. The first thing on my mind was how to get her to the hospital the fastest. If she could climb the steps to where the car was parked, that would be our first success. There were at least 20 steps she had to climb before she could reach the parking area.
When we finally could get into the car, I knew that I had to drive through heavy traffic to reach town. I stepped on the gas stronger than ever and manoeuvred like Schumacher at his best. I turned the emergency signals on and drove with undivided focus. There was no way of reaching Bethany Hospital from Laimer (3rd Mile) in a short time if you did not have the skills of a Mission Impossible Tom Cruise.
There was no problem. Many cars gave us right of way and understood we were in an emergency situation. However, when we reached the Don Bosco stretch, there was one government jeep coming in the opposite direction and refused to move aside, even though it had seen our vehicle with its emergency signals on. I waved my hand to signal the urgency, but the officer sitting in the front passenger seat callously dismissed my attempt. I couldn’t help but inch forward to indicate the seriousness of our situation. As I drew closer to the jeep, I looked at the officer and, in frustration, said, “Balei pha?”—an expression meaning, “Why you?” in feminine terms to indicate how low he had gone with his gesture towards me in that situation. He did not respond but simply looked at me in anger. My wife in pangs begged me not to tarry. I rushed ahead, but the incident stayed with me as both a humorous story and a lesson: always give way to vehicles in an emergency, even in the midst of a Shillong traffic. That was in 2017. Even today.
By Mankular Lamin Gashnga
