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7 min
13/04/2026
Rice is the unifying ingredient across almost every sweet made during Bihu, including the spring special Rongali Bihu. As for Jolpan, it’s a meal reserved for special occasions like festivals, weddings, or celebrations. Rice-based snacks that are quick to make, such as tossing corn kernels in a hot pot, are served in numerous dishes for Jolpan. What exactly is Jolpan during Rongali Bihu, and what are the primary constituents? Read on to find out.
Bohag Bihu, also known as Rongali Bihu, is the biggest and most widely celebrated festival in Assam, marking the Assamese New Year and the onset of spring. Jolpan is an integral part of Bihu celebrations, which is typically a small meal, usually reserved for Bihu mornings, that has a spread of various forms of rice: ground roasted rice (xandoh), boiled and flattened (chira), puffed rice (akhoi, mudhi), and varieties of glutinous rice (bora saul, kumol saul). All these are eaten along with curd (doi), jaggery (goor), and the wide varieties of pithas. When a guest enters a home, they are traditionally offered a Gamosa, a handwoven towel, and a platter of these rice dishes.
In Assamese, the literal meaning of the word ‘Jolpan’ is water (Jol) and pan (Betel Leaf); the latter is usually present at Jolpan. It is generally served with pithas (sweet or salty regional rice snacks), larus (spherical sweet balls), and laal saah (red tea). Traditionally, Jalpan is served in bell-metal (kahor) bowls, a practice that continues in Assamese households as a mark of cultural respect.
The core Jalpan platter is less a single recipe than an assembly of dishes, all hyper-focused on quick preparation. Here is what goes into it and how to prepare each:
Ingredients:
Komal Saul (soft instant rice): 1 cup
Chira (flattened rice): 1 cup
Muri or Akhoi (puffed or popped rice): ½ cup
Doi (thick curd or yoghurt): 1 cup
Gur (jaggery): to taste
Fresh cream or milk: optional
How to Assemble:
For Komal Saul: place the rice in a bowl, add hot water to the level above the rice, and leave it for 15 minutes. After it is properly soaked, drain in a steel strainer for 10 minutes. Add curd or yoghurt and place jaggery on top.
For Chira: put the chira in a bowl, add hot water, and let it soak for 15 minutes. Squeeze the rice to remove excess water, then mix with curd and jaggery.
For Muri: serve directly in the bowl, top with thick curd, and sprinkle ground jaggery over it.
Arrange everything on a single metal plate (banbati) for an authentic Rongali Bihu Jolpan.
Pitha is one of the inseparable sweets of Rongali Bihu festivities, and one of the most loved ones is til pitha. It is made with bora saul (glutinous rice), black sesame seeds, jaggery, and water. The soaked rice is ground into a fine paste, spread thin on a hot iron tawa, and cooked. A filling made with roasted black sesame and jaggery is added, then the rolls are rolled while still warm.
Another beloved pitha variety during Bihu is ghila pitha, a deep-fried rice cake made from rice flour, jaggery, fennel seeds, salt, baking soda, and water, named after the word ‘ghila’, meaning kneecaps, for its shape and size. The batter is mixed into a thick consistency and spooned into hot oil, where it puffs and turns golden brown. The dish is hand-shaped and served warm or at room temperature.
Coconut laddoos are what Assamese people call narikol laru, which are popular during Rongali Bohu. It’s made with freshly grated coconut, jaggery, and sometimes cardamom. The coconut is cooked with jaggery in a heavy pan until it reduces and begins to leave the sides of the pan. Once it is cool enough to be touched, it is rolled into bite-sized balls. The sweets are soft, chewy, fragrant and sweet, commonly prepared in large batches during Bohag Bihu.
Sunga saul, also called sunga pitha or chunga pitha, with ‘sunga’ meaning tube and ‘saul’ meaning rice. The rice should be added to hollowed-out bamboo tubes with a bit of water to cook, then the ends sealed with banana leaves. It is then roasted over an open fire, and once cooked, the cooked rice cake inside is removed and eaten with (either of the three) milk, curd, cream and jaggery.
Flattened rice, or chira, is quite popular for breakfast in many parts of India, and during Rongali Bihu, it is mixed with curd and jaggery, and sometimes banana, then eaten. The chira is briefly soaked or rinsed to soften it, then mixed with curd and the sweetener. It is served immediately as a cooling, light festive meal, often eaten in the morning during Bihu celebrations.
Assamese cuisine is centred on one of their major crops – rice - thanks to the fertile riverine plains that foster its growth. The warm, high-humidity climate, along with rainfall, makes it a conducive place to grow rice. The area also produces a wide variety of fresh vegetables and has an abundance of fish and meat.
The wide variety of rice found in the region has led to speculation that the grain was first domesticated in the Assam-Yunnan region. Both the indica and japonica varieties are grown in Assam. The Jalpan tradition reflects this deep bond, and locals consume indigenous rice in multiple preserved forms. The practice thus also extends to major festivals like Rongali Bihu.
By consuming dishes made with rice and other staples such as jaggery and milk, the people of Assam pay homage to the goddess of crops and celebrate the resilience of their agricultural heritage. Every bowl of Chira and every slice of Sunga Saul are links to a past that values nature's seasonal shifts above all else.
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