My Lovely Homeplace

by Abhitjit Bora
India

Whenever someone asks me where I am from, obviously I say that I am from India. But if asked which city or part of this country with continental proportions it becomes somewhat difficult to describe it properly. So, let me try to explain you about my birthplace.

It is a somewhat big province/state in India's northeastern most corner. We share more than a 1000 kilometres of border with Bangladesh, a few kilometres with Bhuttan, and on the other sides we share borders with six other states of India which in turn share their borders with China, and Burma/Myanmar. A medium-sized city called Guwahati is the state capitl, which is my hometown. But at present I am living in a small University town Caltezpur,which is also the name of my University. It is much bigger than Athens.

To give you an idea of the distance, Guwahati 2,000 kilometres from Delhi and 1500 kilometres from Kolkata/Calcutta. If you would kindly look at the map of India here you can see Assam on the right corner. Again if you would look at the map of Assam given here - the places Kamrup and Sonitpur are the districts of my hometown and working place.

I also welcome you all to this lovely land and perfectly friendly and hospitable nation. We have much oil and natural gas, a few hundred one-horned rhinos, beautifully crafted and picturesques tea gardens, a very big rivver dividing us in half from east to west that has been flowing from the Himalayas through Tibbet and China, and entering Bangladesh after Assam.