Assam - Part 1 of a NE trilogy.

 Just returned from an exhilarating visit to three beautiful states of North East India. It seemed that they were vying with each other to show off their natural beauty and ancient temples.

Overall an amazing visit and since posting about all three in one post will not do justice to what we experienced, I will post three different posts starting with Assam and ending with Arunachal with Meghalaya sandwiched in between.

We landed in Guwahati, Assam at 0800 hrs and were spellbound by the beauteous bamboo work at the airport. 

So instead of hovering around the baggage belt we found browsing around the airport arrival lounge more fruitful. It reminded me of the age old song ‘House of Bamboo’ by Andy Williams released in 1958. It was a big hit for a few decades! 

The airport interior too was a winner. Beautiful gigantic and mini bamboo sculptures seemingly in a lush forest. The roof and the walls too were covered with bamboo. 

There were a couple of cute rhinoceros sculptures too to welcome us.

Our first visit straight from the airport was to pay our respects to Maa Kamakhya. 

Maa Kamakhya or Kameswari is the renowned Goddess of Desire. The temple has origins dating to the 10th/11th century and was rebuilt in 1565 CE. She is worshiped in a non-iconic and un-anthropomorphic form of stone shaped like yoni fed by a perennial stream. The temple is primary amongst the 51 Shakti pithas, and is one of the most important Shakti temples.

The rampant commercialization of religion was visible as soon as we started climbing the steps towards the temple. Lot of touts, some clad in full pujari (priestly) accoutrements and some in regular clothes, approached us for a quick darshan of the deity in the temple. The temple had also advertised a Rs.501/- quick darshan queue. We refused them all and went ahead to see what best could be achieved without bribing anyone. When we reached the temple there were two long queues, one longer than the other, the shorter was obviously the Rs.501/- ticketed one. We passed them by and went ahead and to our surprise we found a door manned by security guards and no queue. We asked if we could enter the temple, they smilingly said yes. We found out that we could enter this door but not make any offerings to the deity, which was fine by us and we stood there and prayed to the Goddess in almost solitude. Our cash offering was placed in the box kept there for the purpose and we exited feeling blessed!

There were plenty of goats of various sizes and pigeons on the perimeter of the temple to be sacrificed if anyone wished to. We didn’t. 

On the way down. we passed the same shops selling lovely flowers and other items as offerings to the deity. 

We were feeling quite hungry too so at the bottom of the steps we espied a small eatery selling the local favourite ‘Puri sabji’. 

Without second thoughts we entered and enjoyed the fare served. The puris were surprisingly not oily as we generally find them but nice, soft and crisp and the sabji too was a potato curry which was tasty. Having had our fill, we moved on to the next temple on the itinerary, the Navagraha temple.

This was a downright sell off by the ‘pandas’ as those priests are known. It is like a cave, all dark inside with lamps lit at various places. If you want darshan or if you need to do puja you have to pay Rs.501/- to the priest sitting at the entrance with a register. Since we just wanted to see what it was like inside we walked in without making any payment and all that we could see were lamps lit in the dark, not illuminating, and chants by the priests. Seemed quite scary to be honest. So we walked out and looked around for some overviews of Guwahati which were denied to us by the thick smog all around.

This marked the end of our ‘sightseeing’ in Guwahati for the day.

Next day we visited the Umananda temple on the peacock island. The ferry ride to the temple was wonderful.

Umananda Island is the smallest inhabited river islet in the middle of river Brahmaputra, flowing through the city of Guwahati in Assam, a state in northeast India. Its name derives from Assamese Uma, another name for the Hindu goddess Parvati, the wife of Shiva; and Ananda, which translates to "joy". A British officer named the island Peacock Island for its structure, which he thought resembled the splayed feathers of a peacock.

We were fortunate to get a darshan without spending too much time in the queue. Here too there were ‘pandas’ willing to help you skip the queue for a monetary consideration which we declined. Surprisingly, unlike other temples, there were no beggars. And that was really heartening.

Now let me introduce you to the amazing Assamese thali. The thali has about six to seven side dishes

along with rice, papad and dal. If you want a non veg thali you will get a veg thali along with the non veg dish of your choice. So simple. The food was absolutely delicious and became our staple meal all the time we were there. All the food was served in brass plates!

Assam can be described in a word as a place for ‘Pilgrimage.’ Of course am sure that I missed out on a lot of other notable things but maybe next time!

In my next post I will take you along to Meghalaya.