The journey called life has taken me to Patna,the capital of Bihar ,the flagship BIMARU state.
All thoughts of you being robbed,kidnapped and injured started in my psyche the moment I landed in the city.After completing the conference I was keen to venture around and wanted to feel the life there.
The city seems to cruzing on its own speed.The small roads were full of traffic with pedestrian ,two wheeler ,four wheeler and also cattles making your way all the more difficult.
However one peculiar thing about Patna seemed to very frequent urge of everyone to honk.
One can safely honour Patna with the title of "Honking capital of the world".Here honking seems to be the birth right of everyone and nobody cared for silence zones,etc.
All of us went to see the Ganges ,where in order to kill the time we went out on small boat which was filled to the brim.After some time the boat started drifting towards a small island like place.
Once there we kept our shoes in the boat and jumped into the water to cross over to the sandy patch of soil.
The view of the palace of the king of Dharbhanga on one side and Mahatma Gandhi setu on the other was itself fully paisa vasool and it was for just ten bucks for the return trip.
Suddenly the boat which brought us started moving towards the other shore.Before we could realise anything it was far beyond our clarion call for our shoes which were left in it.All big discussion on the geopolitical situation screeched to halt and suddenly everyone came back from the divine and enjoyable sight to the real world where the only question cropping up in every one's mind was their shoes.We couldn't but start doubting the boat man and everyone inside it.Being in Bihar nobody could even think of getting back those much needed shoes.
After some time few more boats sailed to the island but alas our boat was nowhere to see.
When every Tom started planning to go the naked feet to our Hotel rooms ,suddenly we could listen to a shout "O Jutey wale bhayya ,Aapka Jutey le lo"! It was the same boatman whom we cursed and called names just a few pairs of shoes!!
All four were so delighted to get back the shoes and I started thinking -the people in the heartlands of India particularly Bihar are not heartless as they are portrayed outside.
They are simple people with dreams of making both ends meet ,they are ambitious people who could not enjoy the fruits of modernisation ,they are people who thought "vikas" is not their cup of tea till somebody opened their eyes to the colossal loss they have incurred by entrusting wrong people for so many years.
The trust of India lies in villages and on the banks of sacred Ganges live the true sons of Mother India!!
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