Fascinating Assam (Asom, Axom) straddles the fertile Brahmaputra valley, making it the most accessible core of India’s northeast. The archetypal Assamese landscape offers mesmerising autumnal vistas over seemingly endless gold-green rice fields patched with palm and bamboo groves and distantly hemmed with hazy blue mountain horizons. In between are equally endless, equally gorgeous manicured tea estates. Unlike Sri Lanka’s or Darjeeling’s, Assamese tea estates are virtually flat and take their particular scenic splendour from the dappled shade of interplanted acacia trees that shield sensitive tea leaves from the blazing sun.
Assamese people might look ‘Indian’, but Assamese culture is proudly distinct: the neo-Vaishnavite faith is virtually a ‘national’ religion and the gamosa (a red-and-white embroidered scarf worn for prayer by most Assamese men) is a subtle mark of ‘national’ costume. Despite similarities between Bengali and Assamese alphabets, Assam is vehemently NOT Bengal. Indeed the influx of Bengali migrants to the state remains one of Assam’s hottest political issues. The Assamese have long bemoaned a perceived neglect and imperial attitude from Delhi for failing to stem that tide of immigration.
