Ever imagined cooking your favourite biryani or stir frying assorted vegetables in a cooker or a frying pan made of bamboo? Or savouring the food prepared by you on a bamboo dining plate, bamboo trays and bowls?
With Dhritiman Borah around, Bamboo cutleries and goblets will add to your fine dining experience. You can finally carry the waste in a bamboo bag straight to the litter bin.
“The work on the bamboo pressure cooker and the bamboo frying pan is on and by middle of December the product will be in the stable. It’s totally organic and made of local bamboo. It shall use electricity and one can prepare food for two to three person in it. However the bamboo bags are almost done. They are made of bamboo powder and are bio-degradable and affordable,” says Dhritiman Borah.
However it’s the unique Bamboo Bottles that gave Dhritiman his new found fame and the distinctiveness to Assam bamboo which the Chief Minister of state, Sarbananda Sonwal termed as the “Green Gold”.
The young entrepreneur had to wait for 17 long years to come up with the bamboo bottle, a product that stands out in its category. Right from the cap to the bottom every product of the sleek and suave bottle is carved out of bamboo and projects itself as a totally organic and bio-degradable product.
Each bottle takes about five hours to make — from sizing the bamboo, boiling, smoking and drying to make it more tenacious and durable, then joining the parts and the final touches. Boiling purifies and strengthens the wall around the hollow of the culm, and this helps the bottle long.
“The earlier bottles featured a slender mouth either in the middle of the culm or in the edges. However the more recent addition are the bottles with broad mouth and a wide cap. Making the wider version watertight was a challenge as the bottle does not use any other product,” says Dhriitman.
A college dropout, Bora started his small scale industry in Nabapur of Biswanath Chariali in Assam to make garden and kitchen utilities of bamboo some 20 years ago with no formal training or knowledge of working with bamboo. Today besides his brother and parents as active partners in DB Industries, Bora employs 15 youths of his district in the trade.
“During the first phase of national lockdown, I had to close the factory. However the unlock phase brought good trade along with it. International queries poured in handsomely. We have been exporting bottles and bamboo straws to US, Canada, Mexico and Spain regularly as things have relaxed considerably amidst the pandemic crisis," Bora says.
"The US is a huge market. I also expect the export to multiply during Diwali, as people ask for the bottles as festive gifts,” adds Borah.
The overseas orders demand a more rustic look in the bottle sans the polish and rounded corners. However for some domestic orders, Bora himself makes the polished and smooth versions of the bottles. Each of the bottles comes with a price tag ranging between Rs 250 to Rs 550 per bottle depending upon their size and finish.
While the Covid-19 crisis has forced the country’s GDP on a declining curve, the bamboo bottle trade is churning a monthly business of rupees 10 to 12 lakhs. “We make six to eight thousand bottles and around fifty thousand straws monthly. The bamboo plates will also be a show-stealer, ” says Dhritiman Borah.
In his aim to make the country self-reliant or 'Aatmanirbhar', Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recently highlighted the value addition of bamboo products in Assam, Tripura and Manipur.
"Skilled artisans are making bottles, tiffin boxes and various other essential products with the bamboo in Assam, Tripura and Manipur. These products made with bamboo are of high quality and very useful," PM Modi had said during his monthly 'Mann ki Baat' Radio programme.
Encouraged by the Prime Minister's acknowledgment, Dhritiman has also written to the former introducing his bamboo bottle and the ongoing work on other products. In his letter he has sought help from the Prime Minister's Officer to take his business further and provide the nation a better alternative in its tirade against plastic.
For his bamboo bottles made of jati (Bambusa tulda) and bijuli (Bambusa pallida), Dhritiman has applied for a patent. He is not the first to make a bamboo bottle but the ones that some Chinese manufacturers are making have glass interiors and steel caps, Borah’s one is complete organic.
The saying goes, Aeke joopi baanhore kunu hoy lathi, kunu jaathi aaru kunu barhonir kaathi (the same bamboo yields the stick, the spear, and the broom). For Dhritiman Borah, he definitely has bottled it.
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