The Bihar Experience

 I’ve been in Bihar three days now and if I haven’t written, it’s not just because I’ve been doing  sixteen hour work days, but also because I’m yet so dazzled by the experience, that I wasn’t sure I could put down coherent thoughts of it.

What can I say.... it’s like viewing life through a whole different lens.  I all over again get what it means to say 'Índia is a land of diversity' .

Dhabangness is a word you hear a lot of. And two days, and you feel a lot of. It's an approach, an attitude, a whole different way of life. Up until I came here, Dhabaang was just a movie, didn't even know what it meant. It was just this image of the hoarding of Salman Khan and his shirtless six pack, shades and a swagger. 

Here, that's life. ...it's just everywhere. Male dominant wouldn't say it.  It's raw Machismo that you see, feel , hear.....even the guy who serves you tea at the road side dhaba has a six pack with rippling muscles and an attitude that's ...well, Dabaang :)

And what's hard to digest is that, it seems to be to the exclusion of almost all else. Like a friend said….law, women, lower castes..... even life.... have little or no value. 

The place itself is really beautiful. We’ve been driving through the districts of Munger, Bhagalpur and Samastipur, and it’s almost all along the Ganges. It's picturesque, green, cute huts, beautifully colored sarees ( you see very little of the woman herself) ,  small peaked temples, jersey cows, huge buffaloes, jajaariyas, sweet bandis...very pretty. Rest through pics

Ganga Ji, as it's always referred to here

                                                       
                                              All temples are like this, small and sweet

                                             Salman Khan se kuch kum hai kya??

Wonder how they make it stay on the head ?

                                           A boy balancing on the buffaloe as he washed it

An interesting anecdote here. A colleague was ealier working with HLL, selling soaps and shampoos and stuff in Bihar, and the company wrote to him saying there is a very high sale of godrej hair dye in a particular village and to go to the field and see , and he found that they were using the hair colour on their buffaloes :). They really love their cows and buffaloes, and take a lot of pride in making us tea from ghar ka dhoodh.

                                                   

That's us with our potential entrepreneur , Yashwanth Kumar on my right, with whose help we're hoping to electrify this village which has no connection to the grid...... and those little kids up there, I'm hoping they grow up knowing the pluses of electricity :)