The folklore of flood

The people of villages in Bihar they live in harmony, most villages are situated closer by when compared to other parts of the world. There are people from almost all religion, caste, income-status, and so on. Evening Bhajans and folk songs are a routine at these fertile and feudal lands, which hasn’t seen much progress so far. Perhaps the rich fertile alluvial land, the perpetual supply of soil from Himalayan erosion and floods, gives strength to all the men to stick to their viewpoint. 

Bhola Rajak is a routine performer with his Harmonium and heartful cracksome vocals. Others would assist him with percussion instruments such as Tabla, making arrangements for dari, mike, fetching chairs for elderly, and so on. A loud-speaker masted as high as possible, which would be ten odd feet, or even higher, is a continuous invitation. Recently, most songs of Bhola and partner have been devotional songs, songs devoted to Gods, otherwise also known as Bhajans. They also play Folk songs which may sound similar to Bhajans to the uninformed ears, but hey, we know what Folk songs mean. They are truthful and unsophisticated but intelligent structures which portray the struggles of the times they are played in. Folklores attempt to transfer wisdom, mostly through a story. Unlike Bhajans, Folk songs usually do not take God that seriously. Bhola, to his own as well his audience’s demand has been keen on Bhajans, and on my inquiry if he has his own orginial Folk songs as well, more specific my question that if floods are so common to you you must have some flood songs under your belt. He could not refuse my friendly request and played one on floods for next ten minutes.

It is also quite likely that he made up the song just there right on spot. The song had kanyas- three of them, a bamboo raft on which they floated, a snake on top of the raft which they find later, and finally encountering robbers at the end down-stream where the flooded river slowed. Now, where should these three helpless women go? In front is a deep well, and now behind a valley. And, all of a sudden, the dangerous looking snake transmogrifies into Lord Krishna who then took good care of the robbers and the three helpless women too.

Oh my God…

***

Bhajan: (N.) Song devoted to God.

Dari: (N.) Floor rug

Harmonium: (N.) Portable Wind based instrument which has keys. Modern synthesizers/casios come from this.

Kanya: (N.) Female of the human species

Mike: (N.) An Indian alternative for sound amplification. Altertive to Mic./ Microphone.

Tabla: A Melodic percussion instrument which comes in pair.

A tribute to Indian Folklore

India, it lives in its villages,
romantics say in a quirky tone.
No! it dies in its villages,
realists sigh and moan.

If both could be right,
then who would be wrong.
Maybe the truth lies with,
the villager and his own folk song.

ladies and jantlemen, I present to you "Bhola Rajak. From Hariraha village in Madhepura district, Bihar, India. In the video (Courtesy and thanks to Kamal for the capture and the angle within) - see the typical country rock style in showcase.

The other is an audio file – a ballad on the famous and unfortunate 2008 river Koshi floods in Bihar. I will title it as 'char bhavani' It’s a big task to pen the lyrics but in the nutshell -

The Koshi dam breaks – four sisters find themselves on a bamboo raft – below is flood waters on which the raft sails, on top is a snake - Further down stream, looters are looting the stuff that flows with water - They see the girls and now want to balatkar (rape) them – The girls are scared because cornered now they have no-where to go – The snake bites the goons – This snake is an incarnation of Lourd Krishna.

If you would like to promote this one amazing performer let me know, I will contact Bhola Rajak. I am not sure how he would react.

Kaddu v/s Tomatoes

A two kilo kaddu costs fifty paisa in an Eastern Bihari village where it grows. Fifty kilometres off, not so much a well off place but a district town centre, the same thing costs 10 rupee. In the same town, tomatoes cost ten rupees a kilo and most people cannot easily afford either. Overnight distance across in Uttaranchal where the same tomatoes come from, the farmer will give you the tomatoes for free because they are going to rot anyways. So, people in both places eat most of what they grow, they keep their habits intact, and therefore build a cultural culture. However, inside them also builds up desires for mobile phones, cars, electricity and so on. In London, the very next day the same tomatoes and kaddus sell for 100 -200 rupees, but, from somewhere else. And, while all this happens, people queue up in government offices (note: 50 kms from the same villages) and wait for the relief of meagre 2000 rupees for the floods that happened last year.

So what the main cause of this problem ? Lack of access and infrastructure clearly one reason. But then whose job is it to build the simplest thing - the road?

People (waiting at the government office): Whose? The government’s! It’s their Road and building department (RnB) who is supposed to make roads.

Sir, you are an executive engineer from the RnB – why are the rural roads in such bad condition?

Answer: Hmm, but the rural roads specifically are taken care by another department called ‘rural roads depeartment’.

But sir, what about the conditions of your roads?

Answer: No! they are fine. We get instructions and we build them. I know from Patna, we are low on budgets.

Me thinking – If the peoples get better roads, although it will be much easier to visit back, the migration will become easier. They can come back home more frequently. Usually from Punjab, where they can work as farm labourers growing wheat and Makka we Indians are proud of.

Throw some light here as well, please

My last post day-before could well have been a rant. But, last night I spent in a village which hasn’t seen its own electricity ever, except a community solar lamp defunct since last 2 months. Villagers charge their mobile phones from the neighbouring village shop 3 kilometers away, to which they usually walk, because cycles are a little expensive, or not needed.

Today 50 kilometers away, here in Saharsa there was no electricity for most of the day, and also the night.

And all over the world, they are switching off their lights for an hour to bring awareness about climate change.

Here. I am only asking for a small change.

Because, atleast blog readers are more understanding human beings, and I hope they didn’t keep their laptops on while their house lights were switched off. I think, bloggers are better people than the sarkari officials because aleast I can reach to them! The latter I know are bad with computers, busy with elections, conducting inter exams peacefully, and are signing, signing and just signing...

POWER POLICY – jugglery of words

No, nothing about the Indian elexions this april here, but this bijli ki samasya in this country. The UPS box behind me wheezes with a half 100 volt power supplies, while the lightning crackles with the same rhythm, every five minutes left or right I see cracks in the sky.

In the UK, where 'the energy' is critical to their functioning and they say is under continuous threat from Russia, and sustainability concerns now in the market, I remember a newspaper advocating shift in the way energy is consumed there; said- “New generation power plants in the country”.

Here I had just read in today’s newspaper- “New power generation plants in the country”.

Just a swap of words I guess.

Ahmedabad to Saharsa again

EDITED

Unlike last time this time I made it on time; yes! from Gujarat to a Bihari town called Saharsa in exactly 18 hours (plus minus 30 minutes). Especially, it is always exciting when you catch your flight running, and they give the chauffeur driven bus all to yourself in the nice airport in Ahmedabad. But, whether the spicejet or IA, your neighbour has turned into an individualist, he is not interested in talking to you. And for you, the same individualist, richer guy, want to know how the trains are cleaned? Either it’s a teenager with both fixed legs inutile so he crawls, or a navel exposing kid because the lowermost button of his shirt is not important, or the shirt’s a couple of sizes small. Compassion or pity, they live on your tips dear passenger, dear citizen.

In Bihar platform no. 1, the train has its one destination written in Gujarati, saying Amdavad. It comes into attention because for a moment the brain is not able to connect something written in Gujarati in a Hindi spoken part of the world (or for that matter Maithili or Bhojpuri).

Makkhis are in plenty. Closer look tells that they live in groups, with 20 to 50 in one, and each group a couple of feet away from each other. In the amidst it feels home no matter strangers pushing onto you when walking, and leaning onto you when sitting waiting for time to pass. The conversations though start up don’t go beyond a point, because it needs at least one of the two to sustain a conversation.

Newspapers are shouting for change, probably not knowing but envisioning what this change means. I share a few brittania cakes with the newspaper selling kid.

In the train, the five newspapers you have bought from different vendors are not yours because you can read only one at a time. You must give it to your surrounding neighbours who will casually ask you for one. You can treat him with chai too and then all his love and travel food is yours. Littees are a must have in Bihar, preferably homemade ones if you can lay your hands on a few by just being nice.

This land is your land – let it flood.

Land, other than atmosphere and water, is arguably the most obvious physical entity that connects heavily to the universe. Eventually it belongs to no-one, or inversely, everyone, and probably though its ownership is never affirmative stays with the affirmative.

I recall Bihar, then the Indian history, and now these recent contemporary times that it is the holding of this land that can be blamed as the root cause of all the conflicts; within the guise of being a thankful source of pride and food. This want to call the land his own has given the man a tendency to divide, and for which he even won’t hesitate the third time to kill, even within his family too. Some people will make use of the second chance to agree and then to migrate.

So, if a flood comes and submerges this land, isn’t it helping solve the problem in a way? The setback is that this water eventually drains to the sea.

A cup of tea in Madhepura

Today I saw a man,
sitting next to me,
I was having tea,
so too he.

Just a thick dark skin,
between atmosphere and him,
hollow eyes and naked feet crackin’,
don’t know the surface sad or smilin’.

Beside him me a triple chin,
shrinking fatter while he grows thin,
him me and me him shall I pity him,
or rather me myself my frien’.

For armpit

E street shuffle at Bihar

Bihar is unique, because when Mihir says, everyone here literary lives on the roads, he is true. I confirm his observation, because whichever road that runs in this state of India is not more than a street wide. Therefore, the roads here are not roads but streets everywhere and most people have their houses or shops fixed just next to them. At first it may nakedly appear that the oppressed is used to being oppressed here, but it is somewhat true, because the truth is everyone gives way to a little arrogant. This could be because, the local land is so fertile and natural and traditional systems so strongly established, that it gives the local folker much much more than whatever material or psychological these babus, politicians, landlords and their cronies can rob from them.

Entry in Bihar

Flying by domestic air plane so can work on sustainable bamboo construction. Doesn’t seem right, right? Spice jet serves packed sandwiches but no tea or coffee. Them could actually stand up to their name by letting a common hawker setup a small chai shop inside the plane itself. Then will actually call it a no frills airline. Don’t I say right? Indian Airlines plane starts late by an hour, the train drops late by an hour. Things don’t change fast, right? Patna, where every man, a stranger, we talked to tells us to take care of ourselves and not talk to strangers. Is it right? Big crowds with green flags filling up the road, with red flags filling up the platforms, is it right? At night Saharsa station is crowded with a minimum five thousand laying or sleeping. Can't say wrong or right. The lazy caretaker after an hour of honking at the hotel gate tells all rooms are occupied by executives, and it is 12’ midnight – what if you have booked a room, is it any time to come? Not right.

Shoddy journalism

Do you care if a hawker sold four samosas to a tourist for 200 dollars? BBC does. And many of the so called enlightened Indians too, who moan that foreigners are indeed vulnerable to cheating in the country. I think otherwise, but it’s a different matter.

The world famous BBC has a well designed web page which tries to be as resourceful as it can be. One of the features (on the right hand side) of any news item is a tag called RELATED INTERNET LINKS. I have found this useful many a times. Now this news piece too has an internet link. Where to? A centralised health care trust in Birmingham!

Why?


Probably, now, every English or BBC website reader must learn from the Dutch experience that samosas are unhealthy.


Read the full article, how the journalist eases off the matter towards the end.

Typical British humor which usually is unable to extend from the cliché of double meaning jokes, heavily draws its inspiration from either animal genitila or tatti-pishaab.

My point -

The fair is one of the solitary and beautiful events I think every admirer of a rural life should be proud of. See one of the links for description. Why do you think that these Dutch tourists went there? and probably the BBC reporter too?

Come on Bee Bee See - Gimme a break.

Bihari Babus in Dubai

Walking in the old part of Dubai is still as peaceful and tranquil as it must have been in the older days. It was another hot friday afternoon, and could have been totally unbearable if I hadn’t had stuck to the shades which the clutter of buildings genuinely offered. Every man who I asked for Diera bus stand pointed his finger straight, and with confidence said, “just up ahead”. Soon I got fed up, for I had been walking for an hour or so and old city limits had more or less ended. Recent newer buildings had started dominating and I decided to stop for some chai sutta just outside the construction gate of Union Square underground station.

Just a few steps away, I noticed two men with their yellow helmets engrossed in some casual conversation. The one who was curiously listening had his helmet held between his left waist and arm, and seemed was comfortably resting although he was standing. The vocal one was leaning with his upper back resting on the road-sign pole stuck firmly into the futpath. They had their one elbow bent because they both held their white cardboard cups close to their lips, just about to take their next sip of tea. I took a few strides closer to them and asked if either of them knew the directions to bus stand, and also subsequently, where they were from. The vocal one turned towards me, smilingly he said, 'Bihar se'. He seemed eager for a conversation, so with a few hand signals and words he explained me the way to the bus stop, which I realised was so close to my office and I saw it everyday. Yes, everyday, and I knew where it was!! I think it was just the heat. Then he asked me where I was from, and I told him that I am from Gujarat but originally from the hills of Uttaranchal, but he is free to assume that I am a Bihari too. After all we both worked for the same construction site! Also, I must admit that there was a common wavelength. He seemed glad too. Then instantly came L.P. Yadav in my mind and I started praising his recent achievements, one of them being how he wittily handles the opposition in the parliament nowadays. But in our conversation in next fifteen minutes he nearly convinced me that it’s only because of Lalu that Bihar is so far behind. A man whose illiterate wife becomes the caretaking chief minister, a man who never cared about real issues when in power, and so on. The new chief minister is much much better. The other guy, also a Bihari just watched, and nodded, but it seemed he agreed to us both. The talk was going towards politics in Bihar but my mind was thinking something else now. Confusedly, I thought- inspite of all the global cry about construction workers mistreated in the UAE isn't this Bihari much happier here? There are Bihari's all over in India working as migrant labourers. Their working conditions aren’t any great and look how they were treated in Assam and Mumbai recently! Either gunned down by ULFA or humiliated in streets by Bajrang Dal. Now I expressed I should proceed on my way. We exchanged see-yous and asked to take care of one-self. I started towards the bus stand which was my only gateway to escape out of Dubai for some time.