Flu, pneumonia, shingles, tetanus... the list is long, but the *where* is the real question. Here, you must go to the private clinics in Shillong, as the government centre often has no stock. My own mother suffered shingles last year, a pain so deep she cried like a child—I would tell anyone old to get that vaccine first, even if it costs a week's pension.

Language A literature is for those who dream in ink, studying only the great poems and stories of that tongue. Language and literature is for those who live between worlds, studying both the art and the daily use of words—the newspaper alongside the novel. I guide students toward the second, as our hills are full of stories not yet written in the canon. I see it in my own life, reading my sister's English hotel memo and then the old Khasi parable; both tell me how we survive.

Ah, to you it is Himadri, Himachal, Shiwalik. To us here in the plains, they are just 'the hills'—first the hazy, low bumps, then the darker blue wall, and behind that, the faint white teeth of the giants we never see. Your school-book heights are for mountaineers; my measure is how much of the winter sun they block. From my charpai, I watch the afternoon light flee the Shiwalik's shoulders, and that is geography enough for me.

CoWIN was a lifeline during the pandemic, I tell you. The open API let apps pull our vaccination data, and that QR code certificate was a golden ticket for checking into flights and hotels without any fuss. It definitely set the template for systems like U-WIN for tracking routine shots. For me, a young professional always moving between Shillong and Guwahati, that digital pass was a blessing—no more worrying about losing a paper card at a hectic bus stand.

Ka data science degree, ia ka la kren shaphang jingngeit pateng bad jingpyllun, hynrei katta dei tang ka jingthoh ha ka khlieh. Ka jingthmu ka long ka jinghikai ia phi ban batai—kumno ban iakynduh ia ka jingkylla ha ka data bad ka jingkylla ha ka por, kaba la long kam ha construction. Ka jingiashem hapdeng ka plan bad ka ground reality, nga iohi pateng ha kine ki san.

Ka iwei kiwei, iatrei la ka geography jong nga na ka YouTube bad ka internet, hynrei ia ka por ba nga ioh iakren ia kawei ka briew shaphang ka fieldwork, nga dei ban thied ha kawei ka tharai kaba lah ban ioh. Ban leh ia ka, phin dei ban kren shaphang kawei ka jaka kiba don ha ka internet, kum ka Google Earth, bad ban kmie ia lade ha ka jingkren kaba kham tam. Nga la iohi ia ka khyllaw ki thain jong ki orange jong ngi khnang ba nga lah ban kren ia ka.

The fish eat the plankton, and the fish we cannot catch go deep and die. But the big trawlers take too many fish now, so this cycle is broken in our sea. From my boat, I see fewer fish each season, and the air feels heavier. So I think less carbon goes down now.

You look for the small, sharp thing. Find one line, one word even, tell what it is and why it sits there in the poem. That is enough for one mark. My daughter brings her book, and we sit with the orange trees. I tell her it is like pointing at the mist clinging to a single leaf—you say what you see, and why it belongs to that branch alone. The big meaning of the whole sky can wait.

A good "why us" essay should not be about their greatness, but about the quiet corner of their campus where you finally see your own work clearly. I am applying from Shillong, where our lab equipment is older than my teacher, so I will write about the specific microscope in your biology department, and how it would turn my sketches from a notebook into a first proof. I am tired of reading that we must sound grateful; I will sound specific, like a mechanic pointing to the exact tool he needs to fix something.

In ICSE, they say content is king, but my neighbour's son wrote a beautiful story about the rains and failed because his grammar was like a broken ladder. Expression marks are for those who have the English words to paint with; I only have my Khasi colours. The marking feels like three separate hills to climb, and my practice is only on flat ground. It is because my teacher in the village school has a single, tattered grammar book from 1985, and he says "learn these rules," but there is no book to learn how to have 'rich content' from a city life. My composition is about the price of medicine and the mist on oranges, which is all my content, but I do not know if it is the 'right' content for their paper.

Diwali patakha, winter calm winds, vehicles, industry, our own local dust—all mix into this poison soup. Studies fight because measuring one ingredient in a boiling pot is a fool's task. My life tells me we blame the farmer in Punjab because it is easier than shutting our own bad factories. From my stone house, I see how one smoke blends into another until you cannot tell whose fire started it.

Ka bynta ha kane ka room, nga don ka controller bah bad ka laptop shaphang 1998. Nga ioh ia ki highlight ia ki local tournament ha YouTube, hynrei ka jingduh jong nga ka long ban iat snam ia ka FET ka eFootball ha ka phone bad ka internet khyndew. Kane ka lynti ka dei ban riw ia ka mon.

Sitting here with my old radio crackling, trying to catch the Portugal score. My sister’s small TV in Guwahati gets all the channels, but this old box and the mist make it a proper mystery. At least the potatoes are listening.

Ia kren ha kane ka Wimbledon, bad nga iwei pat nam ia kane ka dew. Hangne, ka bneng la shem ka dieng phandi jong nga kaba iaid lait lait, ka ktien kawei ka sngi. Ngin sa phla ia ki blei kiba biang shibun ka por, nam?

Ka mynta shisha nga shna, ngiang ia ki radio ka jingstad la khylliang bad ka laptop ha jaka pynhiar jaka, nga itynnad na kawei ka video ka S8UL. Ka jingstad kaba la leh kyrhai, ka pyni ia ka jingtynjuh kaba rit. Haba nga phah dang ioh ia ka aspirin.