Another World - Bihar

ANOTHER WORLD
Gokkula, Muzafarpur District, Bihar
Ajit Chaudhuri

Visited: December 1987 to February 1988
Written: May 1995

Anyone heading for an unfamiliar destination would carry some pre-conceived notions on the experiences likely to be undergone during his/her visit – at least to the extent of whether they would be positive or negative. Tahiti carries visions of grass-skirted nymphets dancing all around you, New York of being mugged and Brazil of high quality football being played everywhere. The impressions one leaves with are usually different, some more and some less. But it is a rare occasion when one’s notions undergo a complete about turn – when all you see on Tahiti’s beaches are fat old Aunties, when meandering around Central Park at midnight enables you to meet only philanthropists and when Sao Paolo versus Santos reminds you of Mohan Bagan versus East Bengal.

This has happened to me just once – Bihar.

My initial emotion upon being told that I was to spend ten weeks with a small voluntary agency in some corner of Muzaffarpur district in Bihar was, to understate things, not positive – something of a cross between sheer fright and a feeling of how on earth did this happen to me. Bihar was a place existing only in newspapers and in conversations with Bihari friends at University. A place of extreme caste differences leading to massacres every now and then. A place ruled by mustachioed landlords who had absolute command over land and everything on it as far as the eye could see, with dusky tribal beauties dancing to their bidding and private armies to settle scores. A place where value for life was close to zero, indirectly proportional to the murder rate, where crime and corruption were rampant across all walks of life. My sole ambition (my attempts to duck out of the assignment did not succeed) was to come out of there alive. Advice from Bihari friends to do so was a) do not get into any trouble and b) if you do get into trouble i) speak only in English and ii) act as if you own the place.

It was thus with quivering knees that me and two fellow sufferers headed from Delhi to Patna, further on to Muzaffarpur via Vaishali, then to Jafarpur and then the village (Gokkula) where we were expected to act as big shot management consultants for a period of 3 months to an organization called Paroo Prakhand Samajik Vikas Pariyojana (PPSVP), known to the local public as the Praajikt.

It was at Muzaffarpur bus stand that Bihar started coming to life, where the bus connecting Muzaffarpur to Gokkula was identified not by its number or destination but by a name. Yes, the bus had a name – Balam Pardesiyan! Balam Pardesiyan was an old and decrepit relic of the Tata Mercedes tie-up, which carried as many people on top as it did inside. It had no papers, and therefore did not run on days in which the owner (who doubles up as the conductor) had information of checking by the RTO. Identification of buses by their names, I soon found, was not restricted to Balam Pardesiyan. Exotic ames for buses operating in mofussil Muzaffarpur abounded – Crack Fighter, Jet Fighter, Jungle Tiger – the names rolled easily of tongues unfamiliar with English. Balam Pardesiyan was a particularly sweet bus – it went along from Gokkula to Muzaffarpur and back every day (unless there was checking), covering an over fifty-kilometer journey in over three hours. On one journey an old man desperately needed to exercise his bowels, so the bus stopped, waited for him to find a bottle of water and do the job, and then proceeded along as though this was a regular occurrence.

Upon reaching the campus at some unearthly hour of the night, we found that we were not expected. The campus had had a dacoity two days earlier, thereby taking their minds of minor matters such as hosting of management experts. The three of us were put into a jhopdi and told that discussions regarding our futures could well take place the next day.

The Project must have had some pull with the local administration, because a police picket was set up within the campus itself so as to restore calm in the aftermath of the dacoity. And that’s where we met Sharmaji.

I had often read, especially in Louis L’Amour, of people who had the gift of story telling. Sharmaji was one of those. He was a constable in the local police station (at the block headquarters in Paroo, 10 km from Gokkula) who was in the picket, and when he was not on duty he was sitting around a fire and telling us about life in Bihar. He had a habot of ending each sentence with a ‘samjhiye na’, with a variety of musical intonations, ‘samjhiiiiiiye na’, ‘samjhiya naaaaa’, and so on, and his stories had two themes – himself and marriages Bihari style. We got to know a lot about him, why, as a BA, he was only a constable in the police, how he got out of doing morning PT during his training by giving tuitions to the commandant’s daughter, how he handled ‘keermeenals’ during interrogation, etcetera.

Marriages were equally interesting and, in later talks with people, I found that what he talked about was generally true though it did not seem so in those younger innocent days when we were first there. That in Begusarai district the BA final exams were always held under armed guards so that fathers of marriageable girls did not whisk away suitable boys at gunpoint. That a marriageable boy would be dealing with three or four girls’ parties, and the ones that were rejected would invariably attempt to thwart the marriage, which was why weapons were always carried by baraats. That, in one case, the boy did not like the looks of the girl when he saw her (which was at the marriage) and the girl’s side, foreseeing the eventuality, had blocked off all exits. So he escaped by jumping out of a bathroom window. So the girl’s side promptly caught hold of one of his friends, also eligible, and forced him to marry her. So at the time of the garlanding, he promptly went and garlanded one of the girl’s friends (presumable better looking). I also learnt that, whatever the circumstances of the wedding, it was recognized and respected.

Though the first, Sharmaji was not the only interesting person we met during the sojourn. Another such person was Bhuvanshwar Dayal Singh, the largest landlord of the area who at 6 foot 3 sttod out in an area of largely short people. BD Singh was approximately 55 years of age and had only two interests in life, his evening bhang and cricket, the former being a longtime attraction and the latter having developed over the previous year or two.

Despite him being a board member of the Project (an uninterested one whose opinion of the Project Director was that he, the PD, was a ‘Ghapchoo’), it was cricket that sparked a friendship between this old man and the three of us that lasted throughout our visit. Once the police picket was removed, we started getting bored in the evenings and therefore one day headed towards the village grounds where the boys were playing cricket, which we promptly joined. A white-haired, oldish, bespectacled man in a white dhoti and kurta was the umpire, fondly (sometimes not particularly fondly) referred to by the boys as Umpire Dhotiwala. He had taken up the job because he found that evening cricket among boys led to fights, and fights in that part of Bihar extend from boys to their families to their caste biraadari. With his presence there was no question of a show of dissent, forget about fights. Cricket slowly got to him. Being past the age of hitting sixes or having batsmen ducking to his bouncers, he took up the umpiring aspect seriously and regularly went to Muzaffarpur (this part had no electricity) when cricket was telecast so that he could watch the umpires. What he saw was promptly replicated on the village maidan in Gokkula, the only concession being that of his attire. He found us a minefield of information on the technical aspects of cricket, so it soon became a ritual after the game for us to head towards the teashop together where, for an hour or so, he would pump us with questions.

The area was a place where the friendliest of fellows could turn out to be dreaded criminals. One such was one of the cricketers, a young chap named Jalandhar, who became our sidekick over the course of the sojourn. He had decided not to go to school, the logic being that his three elder brothers had gone to school so as to cut grass for a living, something he could do perfectly well without schooling, thank you. He turned out to be the local expert and consultant on booth capturing.

Another was a fellow we had met while on our way on cycle to the Gandak river to have a bath, when he waved us down from inside his compound and sat us down for a cup of tea. He was a short, lame, bearded man with piercing eyes, with a hero-worshipping son and the gift of the gab. The tea session lasted two hours and we got to hear the story of his life, how he was a truck driver and had had an accident, how when he was operated upon no amount of anesthetic could knock him off, and how due to some mistaken identity he was once arrested and the police came in a jeep to do so (apparently it is a status symbol among a certain section of society when police come in a jeep to arrest you). He came across as a happy content man who had lived his life fully and was now watching his children grow. We went back to the Project and mentioned that we had met this fellow to find that he was the owner of the local illegal bomb factory.

Life there moved at a leisurely pace. We were woken up at around 7 am by the Project mess boy with tea and biscuits after which we lazed around inside our razais (Bihar winters get quite cold, and we remained in the jhopdi we were first put up in right through our stay) until it was warm enough to move outside. Baths were had at a handpump in our underwear in the open. Food was served at around 11 am and then again at 8 pm, between which time some work was done, some cricket was played and some gup was exchanged with all our friends there.

There were moments away from the normal run of things, such as when a ‘Nautanki’ (a form of folk art local to these parts) came to Gokkula and we sat up and watched an all-night performance. It had men doing all the men and women roles, and if you did not know that the latter were men you would be fooled. I almost walked up to one of the actors to say “Hey! What’s a respectable lady like you doing in a place like this?”. Lots of song and dance and great fun!

The time came for us to return to civilization. Tearful farewells and wild promises of returning were made. The culture shock began from Muzaffarpur onwards. Roads, electricity, busy people!

We kept up a correspondence for some time, exchanging cards and the occasional letter. This died out over the years. Today, that little part of the world and its people are still vivid in my memory. The hospitality to three strange men from a different part of the country, their warmth, their curiosity about our lives! I do not know if I ever want to go back. But today, when people talk of Bihar as comparable only with hell, I smile slowly and mention that it is that and much more – it is an experience.