The Dust and the Shadows

Re: # 11

Dear Freehussaini, thank you very much!

Beautiful.

Literature. Hardcore literature.

Re: # 9

Atif2, thanks for reading the piece.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

#3 malikrashid, #4 Publius, #5 nkg, #6 harish_hyd

Thanks for reading the piece and thanks for your kind words of encouragement. I appreciate it very much.

#7 drlokraj
Thank you, sir. I feel honored.

I enjoyed reading it. Parts of it reminded me the famous style of Mohan Rakesh (particularly, his short stories like Mandi), the journey itself brought in my mind flashes of Fanishwar Nath Renu's Teesri Qasam but somewhere it also resembled plot of Ramsay Brothers' horror movies.

Well written Beej bhai. Almost felt I was traveling alongside. You must write more often.

Agricultural products, specialy food grains etc. are back in the profitable mode...Bihar/UP should do better now, if they formulate good agricultural policy....

Good evocative writing, Beej.It brings out the feel of the place, both the physical and human feel.

The hard shell is, of course , a coping mechanism, somewhat similar to what doctors have to develop in the face of constant suffering and death, if they have to function within their peculiar environment at all.

When suffering is massive and omnipresent, sensitivity to it must suffer too.

But the child without legs turned away with nothing was still too much. An american once told me that for him the hardest part of visiting India was the sight of children begging.

How I wish you had something other than a 1000 rupee note!!

That is why continuing economic reform is so important to India. We need 15-20 years of economic growth to banish such degradation.

There is a hardness which descends on you like a shell when you are in India, it is like a protective shield except it protects nobody but you – and it makes you more of your own master and less of a man.
This experience is universal to third world immigrants when they return, perhaps. Less sensivity and backwardness has ways of mudmasking your skin.

Re: # 1

Ranjit, thanks.

Actually, things in Bihar are on the mend and there is now more reason for optimism than before. I believe that the chokehold of caste politics is slackening. I also think that the Bihari Muslims, in particular, do not like being taken for granted and they do expect improvements in such things as roads, cost of living, etc. Without that changed attitude, the last change in Administration would not have been possible. It is noticed that there is significant improvement in two areas – teachers now actually show up for work (partly because they are now actually getting paid) and you can actually find a doctor in a government hospital.

The INH system through Bihar is being beefed up (as is happening in the rest of the country). It was kind of fun to be driven on four lane divided highways in Bihar.

Clearly, not all of it is upgraded yet. :)

Beej, nice writeup.....but the conditions of Bihar are atrocious.....how come things are so bad?.....