Moments after India's teenage super star Hima Das, 18, sprinted across the finish, to bag a silver medal clocking 50.79s just behind Asia's No 1 quarter-miler Naser Salwa (50.09s) of Bahrain in the 400m final here last night, she ran up to a middle-aged man wearing a Gamosa on his head, and hugged him. He is Nippon Das, the man credited for polishing this rare diamond that glittered with gold at the IAAF U-20 World Championships in Tampere, Finland earlier this year.

Das immediately wrapped his ward with the tri-colour and adjusted his headgear with pride. The Gamosa is a traditional white Assamese cloth with a red border and is considered an integral part of the state's culture and pride. Drawing a parallel between what Hima, the daughter of a farmer in Assam's Nagaon district, means to India, and what a Gamosa means to Assam, is inevitable.