Dejavu’ing in Patna

Everything is back to the same place where it all started. Couldn't help but loose myself under this sense of Déjàvu. In Patna .

It seems that I have traveled two years back in time. Everything is the same. The same maths teacher who helped me with my IRMA,CAT and PO preparation is coming at my home to teach me maths , again. The purpose too is the same.

We study the same books, sit at the same place. We talk about the same things, the same political situation in Bihar. And before leaving he always ask me whether Bela is chained in or not, just like the way he used to do two years back.

At that time I had two parrots who would chitchat with me and inquire me about my progress in Quants. Times changed and one of the two died and the other flew away. Now I have two new parrot couple who too like their ancestors don’t mind poking me about my helplessness when it comes to maths.

The same room at my home provides me and Bela with a peaceful slumber as we sleep under the antic Khaitan fan. The age old fan in my room is still yellow and still it works in a silent manner unlike its counterparts who have either passed away or hanging in some obsolete corner and who cry out loud whenever they are switched on. I first slept under its cool air in Rajkot in 1987 when I was still trying to learn to recite humpty dumpty...

Two years ago I was not able to attend Abhivyakti in Bhopal because of my ensuing exams and this time too I will have to give it a miss and I will "miss it" dearly. The heart will require some consoling but I know it will manage, somehow.

II

Its election time in Bihar. The same political atmosphere easily identifiable by the flags on the street and the waves of white Kurtas that cover every corner of the city has engulfed Patna. Two years back it was the General election and this time its the assembly election. Two years back my neighbor Dasji tried his luck as a BSP candidate from Hajipur and lost. The slogan “Jahan hai Das, wahin hai Aas” didn’t help his cause much. 

But still he regards this particular slogan as one of the best he used at that time.

I met him yesterday while he was taking a stroll with his grandson and when I asked him 'which way the political river will flow in Hajipur this time', he replied that he is done with politics. He had decided that he would not contest any election again. Man of emotions and creativity are easily hurt and they find it aimless to bounce back and thats what happened to Dasji, who retired as a DSP and is an accomplished Tabla player.

Somethings I guess have changed.

Udankhatolas of various color and size are flying over the Patna airspace. As the Lalus and the Nitishs try to outwit each other.

For me this is the flight and fight for life and death for Lalu.He won’t form the government in Bihar that is a surety. Nitish kumar will come back again is a possibility that has to come true and will come true. But for Lalu, if he doesn’t performs substantially this time, his political career will be over for good and no amount of minority or Yadav appeasement will be able to bring him back from his political oblivion. He has to win more than 50 seats to command some respectability at the state and Center level.

It would be interesting to watch Congresses performance in the state as the party has decided to go alone this time. It was Rahul Gandhi who was more adamant in Congress going alone in Bihar, and he deserves accolades for that. It was sort of a huge political question that how a national party can be nonexistent in a state like Bihar. The absence of Congress in the state had created a vacuum that had led to the growth of regional parties like RJD and Ram Bilas Paswan’s LJP who were running the state like a fiefdom.

Read somewhere in a magazine that its "Resurgent Bihar" time. Hope this time goes on and on.

Patna diary

I

Congressi politicians are facing harrowing time, not because of the scorching summer heat but rather its the political heat generated by their own colleagues that has kept some of them on their toes.

The caste based census issue is something that has wedged a deep divide between the political class in between the UPA itself. As can be read, even the intra party members of Congress are looking north and seeking south. Check Ajay Maken's blog on http://ajaymakenthoughts.blogspot.com/2010/05/letter-to-all-young-mps-on-caste-based.html#comments to find how atleast some of the politicians are not behaving like political opportunist.

Then there is the issue of naxalism on which Congress is divided; again. Digvijay Singh feels that they are mislead ideologues while Chidambaram feels that they are nothing but terrorists.

Then it was Mr.Tharoor who was confused between what he wanted to be. Whether a loyal lover, a dedicated politican or a chirpy twittu. Well he was not even sure that why was he made a minister or why did he come to India in the first place. But as things ended the way it did, he must be a relieved man. Mr.Tharoor, you are still miles away from the honesty (pun intended) that is required from a person to succeed as a political entity in this part of the globe.

Another maverick, Jariram Ramesh had to say sorry to the Prime Minister when he openly criticized Chidambaram for his dealing of India's international relation with China.

Manmohan Singh is literally rocking on how to deal with the naxalites. Should he follow Sonia Gandhi or tow his trusted lieutenant Chidambaram. Whom should be fix the blame on for the recent train mishap? Should he agree with the Railway Minister, Mamta Banarjee who says that it is a political conspiracy to malign her or nod his head by going with the cops and say it was the maoist.

Couldn't stop humming Koi rasta to dikha...khuda ke liye....

II

It is not that only on the national level our political structure is showing signs of going haywire. At a more local front, in Bihar too things are not looking good.

Recently a police officer was appointed as Bikramganj DSP. That shouldn't have made the news, because routine transfers seldom evoke curiosity but in the present case , the newly appointed officer is himself on the run from the police. Even before he could assume charge as Bikramganj DSP, a police team from the district police headquarters was sent to arrest him.

The concerned officer who was earlier attached with STF, Avinash Prasad,is wanted by police in connection with a criminal case for last two months and an arrest order against him is pending in the court of law.

About 2 weeks earlier in a similar sort of comical yet serious incident, which raised fingers on the Policing situation in the state, Bihar Human Rights Commission (BHRC) ordered the state government to pay Rs 40,000 each as compensation to ten persons who were jailed on fabricated charges of murder and kidnapping in two separate cases. The commission has also recommended appropriate action against the then SPs who had submitted a false report.

Again nothing new as such incidents do happen in our country, but what has made this incident serious is the fact that in its reply before the SHRC, the police department said that it was because of the "pressure" on the SP to come out with a result soon due to submission of a representation by the kin of the supposed dead victims in the chief minister's Janata darbar, that led to the gross error on the part of the officers, which included a young IPS probationer.

Bihar Chief minister is undertaking a "Vishwas Yatra" of the state so as to prepare for the state assembly elections that are due soon. Speaking in front of the mass, Nitish is bringing out the achievements of his government, but hard he tries, he is not able to say how he has been time and again let down by his subordinates. The biggest let down was couple of years back when Kosi breached its bank and his officers were caught napping. What happened afterwards is a painful history.

He has a reputation for being upright and high on discipline but that qualities are not channeling down to the lower level. His efforts to put Bihar back on tracks have been successful, albeit, if he got more cooperation of his support staff of government employees the result would have been far better.

Nitish Kumar has all through the last four and a half years focused on Good governance but as the political finale approaches, it seems the state has not progressed much on that front. Corruption has not come down inspite of the fact that a proactive approach was adopted to tackle this disease, including setting up of fast track courts.

The various state departments in Bihar are still to come out of the 'high' that the previous regime gave them. They still feel that they have every right to prolong and unnecessarily delay work of the common men. They still believe that bribe is a part of their salary.

For their routine work they expect that they will be offered cash. And believe me, antics adopted in MunnaBhai won't work here.

I personally had this experience of being asked for bribe for a legitimate act when my cousin who is seeking job of his father on compensatory ground was asked for money in return for moving his file ahead. Not going into the details, a feeling of anguish comes when you think that how can these people be so senseless and shameful. And you feel bad when you think that how will those thousands of illiterate people who have no one to lean on will arrange for ten thousand rupees to join a job which is their legitimate right and whose monthly salary is maybe four thousand rupees.

Losing hope is very easy and to rekindle it is herculean. And right now, after going through the many a such shattering experiences time and again, I am moving towards the easier approach.

It will be easy to change Bihar, but not so easy to change the people here, who for years have lived on situations that have eaten away some of very basic human tendencies.

But then Hope dies when you let it die...just like love.And I am not very good at letting things die.

Whom will you feed today

Here you have many choices. Let us start from the beginning.

You can start by feeding a couple of pair of ducks with your hand and after they are full they will ask you to take them out for walk. And if you don't comply they will peck at your feet until you are forced to run away.

They go by the name of Mowgli,Sheena, Masakali, Jack and Mili.

Then comes the Tortoise. Three local Ganges Turtle and one imported Singaporean Turtle who too will seek your attention. And for that matter they too need some early morning exercise. Watching them run on the floor with a slight 'katkat' sound of their claws on the surface gives an impression that a tiny armored infantry is getting ready for the final assault.

If you are still not done then you can perch a hairless 3 year old parrot on your arm and watch him shouting on his top of his voice as if singing "sara zamana hasino ka deewana' and seeking a look or two from the many a sensuous female parrots that have made the huge mango tree standing in our house their home.

Then you have 10-12 odd fishes. Of every kind. Though they don't express their feelings through any sound yet the sheer joy of watching them comeup to you expecting bits of food makes you think that how intelligent these petite aquatic creatures are.

And finally you have Bela, who always likes to remain in the background. Guarding the little tiny vulnerable fellow pet-beings from the peril of this capitalist society, where every one is a meal of someone.

Here at my home in Patna.

Dholu bhai- a tribute

DholuBhai was a small kitten. He had nothing special about him, apart from the chip on his small shoulders that he carried.

It was my mom who first noticed the brown and black kitten roaming in our backyard. And then I got the news, and then it was Bela who made it known to everyone around the vicinity that a kitten had made inroads into her territory. The kitten was first noticed when he was trying to eat discarded tealeaves which made my stomach churn with pity for the small cat.

Apparently he was so hungry that he was eating anything to survive. As was bound to happen, the poor petite still unnamed kitten became one of the many regular animals that were a part of our extended family. And soon, with passage of time he moved into the inner clos er circles, causing much heartburn to Bela. And I named him DholuBhai.

And the two never went alone again, his name.

DholuBhai had an aura about him that justified the use of Bhai. RaiBahadur Dholu too would have looked good, but that would have created a false impression that he was from a royal lineage, which he wasn't.

A closer scrutiny of his past history presented a very disturbing, albeit a very common picture. His mother and two siblings were killed by a male Cat, and his mother died while saving her kittens.

DholuBhai was arrogant to the extent of being disrespectful to our family members. Once me, dad and mom were having morning tea and enjoying the morning sun rays that were being scattered by the huge Mango tree leaves that stand in our garden. Our attention was diverted towards a small, baby squirrel that was still learning the tricks of running down from the tree and stealing nuts from the Duck and Tortoise enclosure. The baby squirrel would climb down, steal a nut, dodging the ducks and climb back into the safety of the huge tree. This happened for 3 times, and then came in Dholu. As the poor squirrel came down for the fourth time, Dholu pounced on him and in less than a second the squirrel was in the hands of god. A sense of anguish was visible on our faces as I ran down to free the poor squirrel from the mouth of death.

But that wasn't to be. DholuBhai had killed the rodent the moment he caught it and he climbed onto a tree, with the prized possession in his mouth. I and two other people working at my home tried for 30 minutes to bring that feline down but no amount of cajoling or threatening worked. When he finally came down, DholuBhai got a sound beating from mom and was admonished from entering into our house again.

As he walked towards our neighbour’s house, which was also his birthplace, he gave me a glance which said that he was heartbroken and would never come again. But he came back soon. My mother couldn’t bear the pain of her beloved Dholu roaming outside in the cold nights and called him back.

Dholu then got into the habit of drugs and he would regularly kill wall lizards and after taking a bite or two he would go unconscious. Leaving me to search for the dead unfinished body of the lizard. Many a times we felt that he would not be able to come out from the poisoning but every time he would defy the inevitable and spring back into life.

He would sleep on my chest, near my pillow, on TV, near the aquarium, with the duck. He loved my sister and would climb on her legs as she would come from Delhi. He would sit on my dad’s lap when he would be having tea, with Bela watching him with envy. He would claw at my mom’s feet asking her for bits of chicken.

Life was good, i was preparing for my IRMA and Bank exams and it was the month of November and it was raining like it had never rained before. It was well past 11 in the night and Dholu bhai had still not arrived. And we searched for him, but he didn't come. 2 days passed, and we were all but heartbroken. We resigned to the fact that Dholu bhai would never come home again.

Then something extraordinary happened. And in the midst of night while having evening walk, I heard his meek calls. And I instantly knew where he was. I ran to my fiat, threw the cover and saw him lying behind the windshield. He was on brink of dying, his eyes were wet, and he was severely dehydrated and was not able to stand on his feet. Apparently he went inside the car along with Bela when our driver took her for a drive, and was forgotten inside. He was stuck in the car for more than 65 hours. But he survived.

After this incident he became more darling of our family. DholuBhai the survivor.

Soon Dholu celebrated his 4th (months) birthday. He got a fish, a chicken and a red ribbon around his neck as his birthday present. But as is with great personalities, his life was not meant to see normal, mundane days for long. One night we heard cat fighting and saw two male cats moving around excited in our neighbour’s house. I could figure out that Dholu was stuck in between them. And that night he didn’t return.

The next morning I saw him sneaking inside our main gate. All bloodied. His tail was broken, had blood rashes all around the body, his front paws were bent at an angle that disregarded biological realities. And his left eye was closed for good. We took him to the Vetenarian and he was admitted there for 2 days. All was over for him, as the doctor thought so. But defying all logic he again survived.

When he came back from the hospital , he was confined to our home, and was made to sleep in our veranda in the night so as to stop him from venturing out. And it was only in the morning that he was permitted to go out. This went for a couple of weeks. And DholuBhai didn’t complain.

After all this not so pleasant happening, I started having this intuition that Dholu bhai was running out of his luck. And that proved right.

One fine afternoon, just before the New Years Eve, a big male cat attacked Dholu and injured him and he was only saved because Bela came and threw the Tabby cat into the air, causing a deep wound. But that was not the end. The same night Dholu went to his birthplace, where his mother used to play with him and where she along with his siblings died. And he was pounced on by the waiting male cat. The fight didn’t last long and by the time I could cross over the other side, there was nothing but silence.

Why did he go there, in spite of knowing the fact that he would get killed is something I would never know.

For the next few days we frantically searched for him, calling out his name, keeping the doors of our home open so that he could easily walk in. We knew what had happened, but we didn’t want to believe it.

We had hopes that one day he would return, defying every plausible logic as he had done before. But that didn't happen, Dholu Bhai didn’t come. Some days later, we found his dead body, just besides the wall separating our and neighbours house. He was lying there in midst of wooden boxes. Eyes closed. He tried to come home safe, but this time he couldn't make it.

DholuBhai was only 6 months old when he left us.

Patna diary

The past one month has been very busy for me (pun intended). To begin with people round the world celebrated my 25th birthday (again the same intention). As I was in Patna I was forced by my dad to pay obeisance at the age old temple of Goddess Kali situated at the historic Darbhanga house.

The Patna University which houses the Darbhanga house is a very serene place near the banks of the ever shrinking river Ganga. One visit is all that is required and if one has the patience to loiter there for around 20 minutes he/she will overhear the veterans of that establishment remembering those good old days when Ganga in full fury at the time of the 'Bihari' monsoon would wash the feet of goddess Kali. During that one month the idol at the temple would be spared the inevitable trouble of the priest waking her up in the wee hours of morning as the raging Ganga would stop anyone from coming near the temple.

Now that same old Ganga has been forced to follow the path of her distant cousin Yamuna who too is fighting for her survival and many don’t give her much chance of making it. Ganga like many other rivers of India has also been given the responsibility of taking the departed souls to the heaven as many of the corpse that can be seen floating in the river suggest.

The age old river though is no match due to the sheer number of corpses that are dumped in the river. Some time back ‘Snapping turtles' that scavenge on corpse were released into the river in thousands so as to provide a solace and support to the river but like Ganga the turtles too conceded defeat in wake of the ever increasing number of the dead and the corpse enjoy a free ride up to the heaven.

One year back while being a part of cremation procession I got the chance to watch the banks of Ganga up-close. The mourners were understandably sad for the demise of their close one but their gloominess increased when they had to walk 6 kms from the main road to reach the bank where the cremation takes place.

Suppressed murmur on the shrinking of Ganga, some accompanied by pity some by anger were heard. The one still that is fresh in my memory goes like this "Kah ho Ganga maiya itna gussa gail..itna mehnat karwaib.. itna chalwaib ' ( Mother Ganga you have become so angry that you have made us walk so much).

A river is dying and shrinking and trying to survive and still people think that she is showing her anger.

The historic Patna University (7^th oldest University in India established in 1917) saw a change of VC as the incumbent Mr. Y.C. Simhadri was removed by the Governor and the new VC Mr. Shyam lal took charge.

Mazharul Haque, Rajendra Prasad, Sri Krisna Sinha, Dr. Sachidanand Sinha, Anugral Narain Sinha, Jay Prakash Narayan, B. P. Mandal, Karpoori Thakur, L. N. Mishra, Baliram Bhagat, Ram Dulari Sinha, Sidheshwar Prasad and many others, all alumni of this University.

The Quit India Movement of 1947 saw almost all of the entire PUs students jumping into the agitation. The Total Revolution called by Jai Prakash Narayan in 1974 had its support base in this University. That revolution gave birth to many leaders that are active in the state and national politics like George Fernandes, Nitish Kumar and Sushil Modi. Sadly none of these alumni including the present honorable Railway Minister have been able to emulate their distinguished seniors.

Mr. Lal who is from Rajasthan happens to be a close friend of my dad and when he visited at our home I was taken back by his softness and his simple-ness. He talked about many a things and he also disclosed that he also had his apprehension about coming to Bihar as the other Indians living outside Bihar do. But he was pleasantly surprised when he discovered that what all is said about Bihar and Patna is more of words that lacks any credibility than anything else. Every state and every city has its problems. The situation worsens if those issues are not looked into. Previously in Yadav’s regime there was no government, no administration and to even think about development was a sign of insanity but the present Nitish kumar led government is working and changes are visible

Mr.Lal was so happy with the state of affair and the all-round improvement that the state is witnessing to that he asked his son to take admission in the soon to be started Chandragupta institute of management in Patna which has been established on the lines of IIMs.

Coming back, yesterday I rescued 5 soft-shell-turtles from a fish market in downtown Patna. All of them are weak, and have got injuries of various natures. The whole of yesterday went into preparing a 'desi aquarium' one with more of mud than water.

Today morning I got a feel of how expert diggers the turtles are as one of them managed to 'escape' from the high security enclosure by tunneling a 15 cm tunnel beneath the fencing that I had erected but with my pet German shepherd, Bela taking up the responsibility of bringing the culprit to books I know that I can breath easy.

A couple of days back one of the students of my university committed suicide. She was very junior to me and took admission in NLIU when we had already graduated. Though she was only an acquaintance as I met her only recently in the convocation yet she came out to be as a young, energetic, ambitious girl having high hopes and unfulfilled dreams enjoying the colleges days and it was truly sad to see an ending that was never expected. It’s never a pleasure experience to hear such kind of news about someone you know.

Have busy days ahead, with the GD/Pi calls waiting to be tackled, calls that would decide where I will be one year down the line. Then there is a wedding of a school friend in Bhopal who is a member of the close circles of friend that we boasted of in our school days.

A visit to Bhopal is always welcomed with open arms and the present one, I am sure will be more memorable as we plan to have a ‘get-together' of all of the school mates. There was a time when we use to meet twice in a day and now it has been almost more than 2 years since I met some of them. Such is life.

One of my friend Patel@lalit finally managed to find a company and a job that suits his stature and I can just speculate that how happy all his other friends are over this.

Many states including Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh that I follow closely will soon be going to polls and it would be interesting to see the drama unfold, perhaps more interesting than the drama itself.