My Experience with Xobdo
Neelotpal Deka*
I was in UK when Xobdo.org was launched over the cyber space. I received an e-mail from Er. Bikram Baruah giving me the link to XOBDO.Org. I was overwhelmed to see an online Assamese Dictionary and surprised to see an engineer taking initiative located in Abu Dhabi. I have been observing the website and new words everyday since then. Back in Guwahati in September, 2006, I started contributing to the online dictionary. Bikram has been a guiding factor for most of my
submissions. He was readily available whenever I faced difficulties. He introduced me to IITG students who further guided 
me for systematic submissions. In spite of all care I took, some of my submissions had to undergo lots of editing. I thought my submissions will soon irritate the Editors of the dictionary. Instead, one day Bikram called me up from Abu Dhabi and encouraged me for more submissions. And I was pleasantly surprised when I was selected as one of the Editors little later. My responsibilities increased, I had to get familiarised with the Editing software used online. The Assamese Keyboard added to the submission page was added on my suggestion to ease the submissions by the members.
XOBDO has come a long way in last two years and added words in some other languages of the North-East. Responding to the suggestions made by the contributors and users to make it more user friendly, the entire structure of the XOBDO has changed a lot in last six months. At present, this website is serving as a dictionary, and everyday new words are being added. The dictionary is now going beyond the word-meaning concept of a dictionary and to add names of places, certain words related to Assamese and North-East culture which we cannot normally find in a general dictionary. This leaves the scope of this dictionary to develop as the first online Assamese encyclopedia. I think the Editors and members can discuss it at appropriate forum and help XOBDO reach that height in near future.
