This January I made my annual trip to my mom's place. Some of my new friends and acquaintances asked me to share some pictures from my trip. That is when I realized I have never really shared anything about my hometown in this space. This space has been primarily for book reviews and sharing recipes, so I guess I had never given it a thought. Now that I have voluntarily taken a break from food blogging for a while, I guess it is fair enough to share some snippets from my life here to keep the blog going.
Where are you from?
This is one of the common questions I am often asked whenever I make new acquaintances. For that matter, I think it is one of the common questions posed to most people. For me, however, the answer is not as simple.
See I am a Marwari and I was born in Rajasthan. But I grew up in Assam. Our family has lived there for decades now and my parents still live there. Every year I visit them, I feel I have come home. My husband (also a Marwari from Rajasthan) grew up in Kolkata and when he says home, he means Kolkata. That is the kind of attachment and longing you feel for a place where you grow up. Now for work, we have moved places - abroad as well as in India and are currently residing in Hyderabad. So, whenever someone asks me these days where I am from – I tell them I am a Rajasthani brought up in Assam. If they are too keen on knowing more, I tell them the whole story.
I come from a small town called Dhubri in Assam. It is about 270 km from Guwahati by road. This time I took a flight from Hyderabad to Guwahati and then made the journey to Dhubri by road. Dhubri is situated by the banks of river Brahmaputra and I have great memories of spending many evenings strolling by the banks of the river with friends.
There is an interesting story about how Dhubri got its name.
There used to be a lady named Netai – Dhubuni who was skilled in witchcraft and magic. The name Dhuburi is supposedly a corruption of the word Dhubuni. It is said she was a washerwoman and would wash clothes at the banks of river Brahmaputra. In 1669, the Sikh Guru Guru Teg Bahadur camped in Dhubri and was attacked by Netai-Dhubuni as the visit by the holiness was seen as an intrusion. Using her sorcery and black magic Netai-Dhubuni hurled a 26 feet long stone on the Guru but it landed in the ground and no harm came to him. Today, the place where Guru Teg Bahadur stayed stands the Gurudwara Sri Teg Bahadur Sahib.
If you want to know more check out this link.
I will leave you with some more pictures of the banks of river Brahmaputra in Dhubri.
Thank you for stopping by! Cheers.
Linking this post to #MondayMusings by Corrine at EverydayGyaan.
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Wow! Beautiful photos! Thank you fro bringing me along! #mondaymusings xo
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