The bus stopped for a tea break just 30 minutes before my destination: Tezpur, Assam. It was only six in the evening but it was already dark. I clambered down with the other passengers, found a corner table to sit at and watched the others order. Tea, a savoury snack and rasgullas! I signalled to the guy bringing a round of tea to give me a glass too. I asked him in Hindi what the people at the other table were getting. “Nimki?” he asked. It sounded like it might be the savoury fried snack I wanted. Nodding my head vigorously to that is how I managed to get my first bite, and learned probably my first word in Assamese.

It was a short trip in Assam and thanks to my lovely hosts- my friend, Bhanu and his wife, Panchali (isn’t it such a beautiful name?) – I managed to get a good look into life and ways of the Assamese. The Assamese love their fish, so it is hard for them to imagine what I, a vegetarian, could possibly explore in their cuisine. But if you look closely enough, you can discover something new even in the handbowl at the restaurant – lemons the size of oranges!

Tezpur is a small town. I don’t suppose it is a hotbed of tourism. The market caters to local needs and whatever fine dining exists caters ‘South Indian, North Indian and Chinese’! I assume the locals wouldn’t bother stepping out to eat home food, so it made sense. Then again, there were popular restaurants like Hotel Mausumi where, I was told, even on weekdays, you can be assured of a 20-minute wait for a seat. But not many options for a vegetarian there either.

Bhut Jholokia- the ghost pepper!

I had dinner at (their) home every evening. We sat down to their staple of rice, dal and a sabzi. We ate in traditional plates made of bell metal, which they consider to have medicinal properties. And a surprise made its way to my plate- the Bhut Jholokia or King Chilli! Made famous or known to a lot of us through the Roadies, Bhut Jholokia is one of the hottest chillies in the world. Here, they had home-grown King Chilli pickle. And an ambitious portion of it in my mouthful left me in hiccups!

All that rice!

The other object of my fascination was johu rice. It is a variety of fragrant rice grown in Assam. It tends to be a little sticky, so it is mostly used in preparation of semi-solids like kheer. Otherwise, a quarter portion of it is cooked with three-quarters of regular rice.

A lot of Assamese dishes seemed centred around forms of rice- akhoi (nel puri/ puffed paddy), muri (puffed rice), chira (flattened rice like poha), sandah (pronounced khandoh) which is beaten rice with milk and jaggery, pithaor rice cakes prepared especially during Bihu and so on. I managed to get hold of a packet of sandah but I’m yet to try it.

Who needs coffee with tea this great?

Of course, no mention of Assam is complete without the ubiquitous tea. Milk tea, green tea, black  tea (or lal cha, as they called it)- tea was available aplenty. In a striking contrast to the blankets of tea crops on the hills of Munnar, I saw the tea in Assam being grown on plain land. I learned that tea is grown on hills as it needs a lot of water but the water shouldn’t stagnate. So here, they grow tea on flat land, taking special care to ensure a good drainage through channels between different sections.   

The search for ethnicity

It felt amusing for me to order Biriyani at Saffron Restaurant, Tezpur, after travelling all the way to Assam, although the Biriyani was pretty good! I just had to satisfy my craving to try something new, so we ordered this dessert, called darsaan. It was a scoop of vanilla ice-cream on a bed of crispy noodles, topped with honey and sesame seeds. The honey made it excessively sweet but it was fun to scoop into the ice cream with the noodles.

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I was told I could try an Assamese Veg Thali at Guwahati during my return but unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to stop for lunch. Then again, that leaves me as good an excuse as any to visit the North-East again!

(Of course, I couldn’t leave Assam without seeing a rhino! I’ll give you some glimpses here but more about the mighty Brahmaputra, the rhinos and elephants of Kaziranga, the legendary stories of love and war that lend Tezpur its name-all of it in a travel blog coming soon!)

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