The Vistadome Express we boarded that morning wound through five hours of swiftly changing views. Its glass roof and wide panoramic windows offered an incredible open-air-like sightseeing experience. Outside the glass window of my coach, the route to Dima Hasao alternated between scenes of earthy village life and forests upon hills. Passing across these trails, I noticed a remarkable design of agricultural farmlands with the curvature of steps cut across slopes.

My co-passenger teaches his young child how hill communities have had centuries of history of growing food crops in hilly terrains with indigenous knowledge systems; on windless nights of early summer, they systematically light a ring of fire enclosing their just-harvested lands; this total burning introduces ashes that revive the land’s fertility. Beyond slash-and-burn, I also noticed the interesting arrangement of bamboo irrigation systems made locally to irrigate these slopes. Afar from the train, the arrangement looks like