I lived in Assam during my entire college education. My father worked in Tezpur. From my college in Gauhati , I used to travel by bus to my parents in Tezpur. On the way I would see steel vessels with those small white globes in syrupy liquid kept safe from flies in glass boxes. Once when the bus stopped for tea, I ventured to ask the roadside seller what that was. He explained in Ohomia some thing. Taking a risk I ordered two of them which I was served in a 'katori'. It was sweet and sour. I then thought " what a wonderful sweet dish". At Tezpur, after that experience I ate Rosogolla often... Most of the time it was sweet and sour !! The reason being the absence of refrigerators in the shops that sold it. Only several months later when I ate freshly made Rosogollas I realized thst it was supposed to be just sweet and not sweet&sour. My stomach was healthy enough then to tolerate the slightly spoilt Rosogollas.
These days I am very pained to see there is a huge controversy raging about its Geographical Identity. Some wants the GI to be Bengal... Yet others are sure it's GI is Odisha. With my sweet experience long ago, I am casting my vote for Assam. I hope my very dear Odiya and Bengali friends will forgive me for my sentiments. May the authorities decide one way or the other before America decides to patent the product....we barely saved the fate of Neem Tree and Bhooth Jolokia, world's hottest chilies from the clutches of patent hungry Yankees.
