Sah Gaurav Krishna suggests the only way to save Bihar "we have to get back and save the state".
I am a Bihari, neither born - nor bred in Bihar. Nevertheless, as much a Bihari as Kachri and Piyaju and Litti and Ghugni. I am born to a Bihari father and over the last thirty years, have travelled to Patna every year.
Our house is situated on the banks of Ganga, overlooking the Hajipur bridge. We had clear unpolluted skies, green fields, between us and the Ganges. My yearly visit would start, as we would disembark at the Patna Junction (a common thread that binds all Biharis) and take a rickshaw to Gandhi Maidan, thereon a shared auto (for Rs 2) upto Gurhatta, and then another rickshaw to reach my house.
Over the last 30 years, the green fields have given way to polluting int-bhattas (brick kilns), The bhattas vomit thick black smoke into the once clear skies. The Hajipur bridge that would be a stream of lights in the night, a la queens necklace, some twenty years back, now looks like some stray bulbs hanging in the wilderness. During this visit I encountered an extremely polluted Patna. Int bhattas (brick kilns), strange auto fuel (bought from table and stool gas stations dotting the roads), filth and squalor, reaching new unattainable heights.
The crime graph hitting another high. The train I was traveling by was stopped for five hours at a station, because the train that had left that station 10 mins ahead of our train, was 'getting robbed' on its way to Patna.
I can fill pages, writing such anecdotes, but the issue is, "What do we do to salvage this".
Answer is, we have to get back and save the state. Fleeing from reality and then cribbing about it is not an answer. We have to get back and put civil practices back in place, in whatever little things we can impact. A queue at the railway station, polite speak to people. Whatever! My parents are retiring, this October after 40 years of living outside the state. They are going back and settling in Patna. We do hope to make a difference.
Sah Gaurav passed from Scindia School and is now with P&G in Singapore. He frequently writes on Bihar issues.
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