36 hours in Guwahati

There's a lot to like about Assam's largest city, but for me it remains enigmatic

As the jeep that left Tawang at 5 am crossed a bridge over the mighty Brahmaputra 13 hours later, an exhausted version of me breathed a sigh of relief. Norbu, our Monpa driver, was a nice person who did not drink and drive like Motu Bhai, and took us to safely to Guwahati from Tawang. The drive to Guwahati took longer than it should have as the caravan of jeeps made long halts for lunch and tea. Once we entered Assam from a tri-junction of the state, Arunachal Pradesh and Bhutan, we drove through the back roads of this golden land. The sight of rich green fields first lit by fading daylight and then by the full moon was the icing on the cake of a spectacularly scenic drive from the Himalayas.

I walked into the first hotel that caught my eye in the famous Paltan Bazaar area. It took almost no effort for me to fall asleep. After a week that felt like 3 months in Tawang, here I was in the plains once again.

I had very little expectations of Guwahati. I had visited the city in 2007 and did not particularly find it appealing then. I did like the city’s riverfront areas and what was then the peaceful Kamakhya temple.

After the long journey from Tawang, I slept like a rock, and so I woke up the next morning, feeling absolutely refreshed and energetic. Task number one was to find a place where I could eat a heavy breakfast. Walking along Paltan Bazaar, there seemed to be several options, but I simply could not resist the temptation of eating at the Kerala Bhavan, a small eatery that was started as a food stall by a Malayali man from Guruvayur in 1973. After almost a month, I had the chance to eat Kerala delicacies such as aapam and curry, and this was accompanied by two cups of piping hot filter coffee.

I did not remember Guwahati as being a particularly friendly place, but this time around, it felt different. I, of course, didn’t stand out in the city, which is one of the most ethnically diverse in India, but something about my large and eager eyes gave me away as a visitor. I exchanged smiles and nods with strangers, who seemed to be from various parts of the northeast. Maybe Guwahati had become friendlier? Or the people I has encountered were having a nice morning? Or maybe I had changed?

I wasn’t particularly keen on sightseeing. I preferred walking around and getting glimpses of ordinary life. There was a fair share of shopping to do as well. I will argue here that the world’s finest tea is produced in Assam. I needed to get enough of it for home and fellow tea-loving friends in Bombay. There was also the temptation of getting some of the locally-made wooden figures that were on sale at the Paltan Bazaar but then again, these things would end up as clutter in small Bombay apartments.

A major centre for Northeast India

Being a big and relatively safe city, Guwahati is a magnet for people from India’s northeast. There was little chance of me leaving this beautiful and under-explored part of India without getting just a bit more of its flavours. I was in luck to stay within walking distance of a restaurant serving food from Nagaland! Throughout my trip I looked for the elusive out-of-season bamboo shoots. I knew for sure that no Naga place would not have it, even if in a fermented form.

At the restaurant, I was welcomed by a smiling Naga girl (or so I initially thought). There were too many things on the menu for me to try so I settled for rice and dish laced with local vegetables and bamboo shoots. While trying to make up my mind I asked the waitress to suggest something that was authentically Naga. She smiled yet again and said she was from Manipur, a state that neighbours Nagaland, so she lacked expertise. I don’t have enough exposure to the region to be able to distinguish between the people of the two states. Many of the indigenous people of the region have features that can easily be mistaken as Southeast Asian or East Asian, but they are Indians, who enrich the cultural fabric of this country.

I dedicated the afternoon to checking out the book shops in Pan Bazaar. I was told that the area is like Calcutta’s College Street, but I have to say that I was a tad disappointed. This area, pleasant and all, was a poor cousin of College Street. The stalls and shops were full of text books and academic guides, as well as books that helped students study for competitive medical and engineering entrance exams. This was not a place to find rare and antiquarian books that have long been out of stock.

I did find a good bookshop, which had a collection of literature from the northeast. My home library now possessed short stories from Arunachal Pradesh, a novel from Assam and non-fiction from Nagaland, Assam and Manipur. I made it a point to buy books that were actually published by small time local publishers. It’s easy enough to find other books in Bombay or online.

Kamakhya Devi

I neatly put my new books into my backpack and waited patiently for a motorcycle taxi that would take me from Pan Bazaar to the Kamakhya Devi temple. From information online, I knew I had enough time to make the trip to the top of the hill and enter the temple. Nothing online could, however, prepare me for what was coming once I reached the temple.

The ride on the motorbike was a lot of fun. I got a chance to see some of the beautiful alleys and main roads of the city. The most pleasing site was the riverfront just before the sunset. There were lemony yellow hues in the sky and a bit of fog made the whole area by the river look like magical. In hindsight (which is always 20-20), I should have asked the driver to stop and have gotten off there. I wasn’t a religious person and the temple could have waited for the next morning or my next visit, but alas… We drove up the hill where the temple is located and got some lovely views of the city. There’s a sunset viewing point there- another place where I should have gotten off.

My dreamy, wanderlust state gave way to shock when I reached the area near the temple. The calm and peaceful temple had turned into a highly commercial area, packed with pilgrims who wanted the blessings of Kamakhya Devi. We had to go one part of the compound to show our vaccine certificate and get a slip that would allow us entry. The path to the temple was lined with shops selling pooja offerings. When I reached the entrance, a policeman told me that I could not take the backpack in, and that the only option was leaving it along with my shoes in a nearby shop! Of course, the pooja offerings were not cheap, and taking them in and giving them to a priest meant paying for rituals. Since I did buy some offerings, I made sure that a pooja was done for loved ones. There is definitely a high amount of spiritual energy in the temple compound and it’s no doubt a place for serious pilgrims to worship and or seek solace, but the sheer commercialisation of the surroundings is too much for me!

Inside the temple, while I lit incense sticks and waited for the pooja offerings to be returned by the priests, I looked at the magnificent ancient sculptures. More has to be written about the temple art of the state.

On my way down I took a shared van and from there an excellent public bus back to Paltan Bazaar, where I spotted a Nepalese-style temple, a piece of Kathmandu in Assam. An online search later revealed that it was built in the 1930s for the local Gurkha community.

Enigmatic Guwahati

Do I now like Guwahati? Absolutely. It is a pleasant place to be in, and a great base to explore the northeast of India. But in my mind, something is just off about the city. The service at the hotel I stayed in was borderline awful, the Uber drivers repeatedly called to ask where I was going, and cancelled trips, and I was hit with a realisation that most of the good service I got was from non-Assamese residents of the city. The shopkeeper from whom I bought the tea was a Marwari, the waitress at the Naga restaurant was from Manipur, the Kerala restaurant had staff from Karnataka and the street vendors from various other parts of India. The rudeness, poor service (this includes a book shop owner who could care less about me buying several titles there), and aggression from Kamakhya were all from Assamese-speakers.

It would be idiotic and bigoted of me to say all the Assamese in Guwahati are rude, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that the city and state is known for its strong sense of nativism. Until very recently, there was a violent separatist movement in the state. There is also a huge public resentment against Bengali-speaking Muslims, who often have to prove they’re not Bangladeshis.

I am sure that I’d get a much broader perspective of life in Guwahati and Assam if I read more of the state’s rich literature and made local friends. But for now, the state’s largest city remains an enigma for me. I will be back to Guwahati for a longer stay, and I am sure I will get a much deeper inside perspective next time.