[visitors are requested to start with Shillong 1.]

when i arrived in shillong, it was just after indian idol's latest season. prasant tamang of darjeeling had won and amit paul had unfortunately been a close second. in his hometown shillong though, amit was a hero. shillong was overflowing with amit's poster's; some old indian idol posters and some from the concert he was to have the day later. i've already talked about the street food in the police bazaar, in fact the only things which were more in demand than the food were his pirated albums, which were being sold every few feet along the sidewalk. along with all the other tourist attractions like the army museum, the viewpoint, the lake, our driver made it a point to show us the hotel where amit was to stay, his house, his father's hardware shop as well as give us a brief history of the life of amit paul and why he should have won indian idol and didn't. for a tourist like me it was nothing more than amusing, but for our driver it was serious business. i rather enjoyed their devotion to him.

our driver made a casual remark about priety zinta being present in the city, but it was evidently of far less importance than amit paul......!!!

to be continued.....