December 2007

What is the geographical image the average Assamese living in the Brahmaputra Valley gets when he or she is thinking of Assam? Does he think of Diphu? ‘Where is that’, he is likely to say? Does she think of Silchar? ‘No way’, she thinks. They eat dried fish called ‘shutki’. What does she think about Gossaigaon or Boxirhat? ‘Where on Earth they are?’ they plead their utter ignorance. Most of the Assamese think of Assam as comprising of Guwahati, Jorhat, Dibrugarh, Sibasagar, Tezpur, Nowgong and few other places in the neighborhood.