Beautiful Country is a journey towards understanding India. From the rarefied world of the Jalpaiguri tea estates to the crowded bylanes of Varanasi, from the pristine forests of Andamans to the seething valley of Manipur, from the scattered habitations of Ladakh to the flooded villages of Barmer - these are the roads less travelled.
Here's an extract from the book:
Assam & Meghalaya
In August 2007, we found ourselves in Dibrugarh, the second largest city of Assam, the state which is the entry point to India's beautiful North east. We knew this state relatively well, having travelled through much of it. The name 'Assam' is an anglicized version of 'Asom' or 'Axom'. There are several theories about its origin. O ne view traces it to the Bodo word 'Ha-Cham', which means 'low or level country'. Another ascribes it to 'Asama', meaning 'unequalled' or 'peerless'. This word was used to refer to the Ahom, a Shan tribe that ruled this land for six centuries from the thirteenth century ad onwards....
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01:58 PM, Jun 21, 2012
