Geological Survey Of India

Working out here in Shillong at the Geological Survey of India, things feel a bit different than the city offices. We are located near the Assam Rifles area in Ngrimmaw, which is a pretty quiet spot most of the time. Our days are filled with looking at rocks, soil samples, and maps of the hills. It is mostly technical stuff, but we talk about it like regular people do. The office has been here for a long time, and you can see that in the stacks of paper and old field notes lying around. We spend a lot of time out in the rain or trekking through the terrain to see what the earth is doing. It’s a lot of walking and a lot of writing things down in notebooks that eventually get typed up. Sometimes the power goes out or the roads get blocked, and we just wait it out. People around here know us as the ones always carrying hammers and bags of stones. We aren’t here to sell anyone anything, just to document what is under our feet. The air is fresh up here, but the work is hard on the knees after a few years. We keep things simple, focus on the geology, and try to make sure the data we collect actually makes sense for the region. It is steady work that keeps us connected to the land and the history of the mountains surrounding us.