North-East Cuisine-The Dilli Way

After spending about a week with my daughter and son in law in Airoli, Navi Mumbai, I with my wife flew back to Guwahati via Delhi. The sole intention of this detouring was nothing but to visit Shri Gautam Das, Manager Shipping in IOCL, New Delhi in response to his ardent invitation. Shri Gautam Das, hails from Barpeta. Accordingly we landed at Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi and moved onward to IOCL apartments at Gautam Buddha Nagar, Noida. The first thing that caught my attention is that Noida has become much greener now. When I first visited Noida in 1997 to attend Trade Union related training at VV Giri National Labour Institute, Noida there was nothing other than the very good roads, the demarcated plots of land and sparse residences in some sectors. However, the intention of this write up is something different.

            Mrs Leena Das, wife of Shri Gautam, an employee of LICI at New Delhi is much fond of traveling. She was vivacious at our arrival and rather hastily planned to take us for a short tour to DILLI HAT by Metro Rail. Thus the next evening we started from Noida City Centre to Rajiv Chowk and then to INA station. One coming from Noida City Cetnre has to change one’s train at Rajiv Chowk to go to INA to be in Dilli Hat. Thus on 27^th May 2011 we all three arrived at Dilli Hat. Just after completion of security check I heard a young couple discussing about visiting the Meghalaya Stall for some food items I cannot exactly recall. We then moved ahead slow paced towards stalls from different states with a variety of items right from craftworks to eatables. There we saw three stalls from Assam. Two stalls of cane and bamboo items from Nalbari and Tezpur and the third one a Food Stall by Assam Tourism Department. Food Stalls were set up by Meghalaya and Manipur also. After an hour or so when we intended to eat something I insisted on visiting North East States stalls. So I first chose the Meghalaya Stall. Leena did not encourage me in this matter. But I went ahead and asked the boy in the stall in Khasi about what they can offer us to eat. The boy though put on a tribal look of North East he could not reply to my query as he did not know Khasi dialect. It did not disappoint me much. I then inquired in Hindi about any Khasi dish and the reason why he could not speak Khasi. But this time it was my turn to find a land to stand on beneath my feet. They let me know that no one of the staff was a Khasi and rather they are all from North India and Nepal. Then I proposed to visit the Food Stall by Assam Tourism Department. Leena became more obdurate this time and advised me to give up my intention. I too grew pigheaded and persuaded her that things might not be the same again. She was not wrong that day too. My wife enquired about the menu of that day and the working staff there pointed to a long glow signed display of items of which nothing was special in an Assamese way. When my wife and Leena asked about some Assamese cuisines they humbly expressed their inability and here too we were entertained with the same story of Non-Assamese staff, at least a single one. This is too much negligence and gross violation of norms for a Tourism Department to represent its own state’s culture on a national platform.  It’s very sad to see that all of the North East Stalls had only common menus and none of the ethnic North Eastern delicacies while stalls from other states particularly the South Indians had a variety of their own cuisines to serve the visitors. Is this not another of one in a hundred examples of how we present ourselves in a very poor way and depict a distorted picture of ourselves? Every conscious North Easterner  should take note of this point.