Bihar Loot-ney

I was much enchanted by a hindi song rendered on the screen by Dr Shilpa Shetty. It went something like this "Dilwalon Kay Dil Kaa Karaar Lootney; Main Aayi Hoon UP Bihar Lootney". I will not attempt to translate it because much will be lost in translation. Having lived 16 years of my life in that state [in the real Bihar and not the current Jharkhand], I read more meanings into the song that many others. For one, like miss Shetty, the rivers in Bihar also have patli kamar [narrow waists], they are beautiful, dangerously attractive, and lethal when they strike:) And of course, they come to loot Bihar once every year, unlike Ms Shetty who has never set foot in Bihar.

True to tradition, this year too with the arrival of August Bihar is again on our TV screens with large parts of it flooded and with our leaders making sorties on helicopters to "assess the damage". And true to tradition of the last forty years, media is presenting this as something that has happened only this year. Hence statements like biggest flood in living memory et al. I have seen this story repeated every year since at least 1980 when I was old enough to separate bull from bullshit and it pains me to see that the trend - of repeated floods, air sorties by politicians and the reporting remaining the same. No one has ever done anything about it nor will. The reason is simple, Bihar is the most backward state in the country it neither has any money to give to anyone no do it's people ever voted on the basis of "economic and social achievements of its leaders". And of course, since the 1980s most resourceful biharis [like myself] cutting across class, caste and religion have chosen to migrate to Delhi and Mumbai if not New York and California never coming back anywhere near the Patna airport. And of course, Biharis are too good to harm anyone, all they do is to kill each other in their own state - never taking the violence out of the state nor killing anyone who pass through that state. It is, therefore, a completely autarkik society and economy, about which no one need fear and hence not do anything about anything and anyone.
For those who do not know this, there are districts in Bihar notably the Maithili heartland of Madhubani and Darbhanga where the land is flooded for almost nine months in a year. It would need a super economist to explain how people live off the land which is flooded for most parts of the year - but they do and its a miracle. The endemic flood seems to be spreading its wings to parts that were not usually affected even a decade ago, such as Champaran in the west and Katihar in the east.
I have taken the escapists route, but there are two people currently deciding on where Bihar goes tomorrow, both respectable, both with vision and both with the required talent to wind their ways through the byzantine alleys of Patna and Delhi politics to steer Bihar not to a bright future but at least to what it used to be when my father as a young 20 year old migrant landed up in the unknown town of Katihar in 1954. Oh you would also want to know the names of the two gentlemen who could "do something" about Bihar - here they are : Nitish Kumar and N K Singh.