Bihar Diaries: Where the Ganga Flows

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I had always wanted to visit Bihar. Having heard of it (its backwardness, to be more precise) for long, I've always wanted to see for myself. Yet another reason was the city of Patna. Patna or rather Pataliputra fascinated me. I imagined all the glories of the capital city. Kingdoms after kingdoms have risen and fallen as have the tides of Ganga. I wanted to walk in that history.
Bihar didn't disappoint me. It was as poor as I had imagined it. It was as dirty and even dustier than I thought it would be. But it still fascinated me. In Patna, I walked in the glories of my imaginings. Food stalls set over drainages lined both sides of the streets. Holy cows walked and lounged bang in the middle of the roads. Shrill cries of vendors were (surprisingly) heard over the unceasing honking of vehicles. We headed to the Museum and the (unfriendly) watchman on duty informed us that it was a holiday (on a Monday)! We were unsated. We sought fulfilment and where better to find it than on the banks of the Ganga (or so they tell us).
We hailed the cycle rickshaw. The rickshaw - wallah bhai promised to take us to the Ganga. His face split into a wide grin as he listened to our conversation. 'Aap Kerala se hain?' We confirmed we were. I had come there, to Shornur, for work, he informed us. 'I'll come back next month after the festival here.' Over the course of the next couple of hours (during which we visited two water - less ghats before arriving at the main channel) we talked. Of his rented cycle (which he assured us was in mint condition), of his home village (in the neighbouring district of Nalanda), of his wife and four daughters, of Kerala (of which he seemed very charmed with), of the lack of money (isn't it always the case), and of how 'even I was given a ride on a bike by some passerby in Kerala'. It reinforced my belief that we lived relatively (and ungraciously) charmed lives here in Kerala. And for the 'bhais', it was a relative heaven.

Gazing across the vast body that was the Ganga, I felt small and overwhelmed. It seemed like I could finally get a glimpse of how mighty kingdoms could rise on its banks. Our richshaw wallah bhai assured us that it was the purest water in the whole world. We gave him our plastic bottle so he could carry the 'holy water' back to his village where the said water would help the dead attain moksha when placed on their lifeless lips.
Perched on his rickshaw I hoped he'll be able to return to Kerala soon enough. We exchanged numbers hoping we'll meet again. But that was then.
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Our Prime Minister wants us to move towards a cashless society. I thought of the rickshaw wallah bhai and of what he said about coming back to Kerala after a month. I also read today's newspapers where it said that immigrant labourers have returned to their state after our new reforms because they went unemployed (and thus hungry) for days. Sadly, it also said of how many were still caught up here because they didn't have the money for the return tickets.
Our PM might get his wish after all, because I'm sure our rickshaw wallah bhai is now cashless. I fervently hope he never had the time to return to Kerala.
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For Hasan...

Did we realize that we would be undone by our beliefs? Would those brave souls who stood up to the vagaries of the world have realized that the first to throw stones at them would be same who they hoped to emancipate. There are some moments that force us to confront these questions which the mundane doesn’t often permit us the luxury of. Why would a boy who lived the best of his twenty five years in some village of West Bengal suddenly find himself in the dark confines of a prison in Hyderabad, a lifetime away from all he hoped to return to one day? Did he realize that one day he would fall victim to that same nefarious plot, the fear of which had actually forced him to voice his protests when many seemingly literate and educated souls strived to shut out all voices of reason from their heads? Would the world now bother to listen that his many dreams in life never included an appointment with the police baton? Or would they even listen that you dreamt of becoming a compassionate businessman (utopian I had thought)? Or that you dreamt of adding the honorable prefix of 'Dr' to your name? Surely, who would care to listen that you sat in a class of a hundred in school, or that unlike many (like me) you had to fight constant battles with the English dailies and dictionaries to get where you are? Would they care to stop and think of what shaped your thoughts as they hurry to pin you down to their narratives?  Will they care to analyse the emotions and faith that took you in the directions of the batons?
I ask these questions knowing the answers. Sometimes those are the ones which are the most hopeless. So I'll ask just one more. What kind of a world (country) are we living in? All of us know that we are going to the dogs. Didn't you tell me some two years back, even before HE was elected that if such a thing come to pass, people of your faith will be deported to P*******. The events which followed must only have helped to exacerbate your fears. If Dadri was everything you feared, only know that you are not alone in your fear. I can only imagine the angst you surely must have felt when a whole community is repeatedly asked to ‘prove’ their nationalistic credentials. Surely, you should have told them about the time when you chided me when I would support the P******* cricket team. Such are the markers for nationalism today! Do you think they have enough space for all of us in P*******? Because if it is you today, it's only tomorrow before it's us.
We do not know where you are. All of us are hoping against hope that you are safe and have dug in there. But then my despair returns. I dread that I willpick up the morning's newspaper and find that they have labelled you a T********. The dreaded T word for all in your community. Will I be listening to rabid news anchors tearing you apart. Surely, a new history will be encrypted for you. But it’s your future that they are aiming for. We really are going to the dogs, ain't we? But I'm waiting for that bite of reality that will open people’s eyes to the fact that the dogs they should dread are on their Right rather than the Left. Sad as it sounds, I find myself hoping that the bite comes all the more sooner for them. In the meantime it's up to us to remind the world that you are a flesh and blood human with dreams that are at once ethereal and mundane, rather than venomous abstract concepts that will surely be laid to consume you. Stay strong friend!