The children of Sasatgre village love Dharmen Momin for his avid storytelling. They would often visit his home just to listen to him animatedly narrate folktales and amusing stories of his grandparents.
Others in the village and across Rongram block know him because of karitchi – the Garo Hills’ oldest local-made soda – which he started selling in 2020 after availing support from the Community-Led Landscape Management Project (CLLMP) as part of its initiative to promote grassroots innovations and foster an exchange of the state’s most preserved traditional knowledge.
The former peon and father of three was always on the lookout for opportunities in the enterprise sector. Soon after resigning from the District Election Office in Tura, he opened a mobile phone shop at Rongram Bazaar in 2010 but closed it in 2015 after returns proved insufficient for the sole breadwinner in the family. But this failure never disappointed him because the dream was to be engaged in the slow food industry through reviving and promoting the organic karitchi soda, an essential ingredient of the popular kappa dish.
The larger objective was always to boost the region’s rich cultural heritage – local cuisines and ingredients, baskets made from bamboo, etc., which Momin believed to be important to the identity of the Garo people and an expression of their unique individuality.
The idea of making karitchi in liquid form came after he realized that many people in Garo Hills were not producing local soda despite the massive banana plantations in and around the region. For him, the opportunity to do something innovative with karitchi was a one-off. A platform was presented to him in 2015 when he was able to promote the product during the “Indigenous Terra Madre” event at Shillong.
In 2016, while working as a participatory video maker for the North East Slow Food & Agrobiodiversity Society (NESFAS), he was afforded the chance to go to Italy to introduce the indigenous soda. Momin reported that the reception was pleasingly strong as slow food lovers in Italy gathered around to keenly hear him explain the process of making the soda, while some even stated that they wished to buy the product.
When he returned, Momin had finally embraced his calling. His aim is to revive, produce and promote his innovative liquid karitchi and encourage other community members to maximize the potential of this indigenous soda as a product that could improve incomes.
Commercial sales officially started in mid-2020 after the World Bank-funded CLLMP project intervened with funding support following the satisfaction of project criteria. Through the project, Momin has since expanded his business and is championing the promotion and preservation of a lost indigenous practice.
Momin is also a professed green activist and nature lover. He abstains from eating meat because of his love for animals and birds. He stated that he is captivated by the lush green forests of Rongram and has pledged to protect its rich biodiversity, particularly the medicinal plants that grow plentifully in the area.
