The Patliputra Chronicles (Part-1)

10 things you cant miss when you are in Bihar

1. People spit. A lot. Sometimes you feel the place wont require monsoons to get flooded.
2. Public transport is perhaps the best in the world. A good part of the population lives on bicycles. Auto-rickshaws work in lieu of the busses…and are usually always as crowded too. Indian Railways provides personalized services here. Every coach in the train has a lever (emergency brakes) which the people are supposed to pull to stop the train wherever they want to get down...at least they think its meant for that!!
3. The universal “road rights” (the ones that say that the pedestrians have more right on the road than a guy on a bike, who in turn has a more right than the one driving a truck) do not apply. Auto-rickshaws are the kings of this jungle and sit right at the apex of this food chain!
4. Shops don’t sell eggs and bread after 10 in the morning. On a more personal note, do not go out asking for eggs or bread at any store after 10 AM…there is a good possibility that everyone around you would seem shocked at the sacrilege that you have committed. You might also get giggled at!
5. Remember that FEVICOL advertisement which shows a bus fully loaded with people?...yeah, exactly.
6. Apart from a few big towns in the state (few), people everywhere like to do things sitting by the roads- eating, drinking, pissing, shitting, smoking, bathing, even something that seems like random sun bathing! This road can be any kind of road- a local lane by the house, a proper road, a state or a national highway. Thankfully, the runaways on the airport are protected (apart from the airport in this place called “Bhagalpur”). Interestingly, folks also seem to be quite fond of using the national highways for another very very important economic activity…drying corn! (They almost end up using half of the driving area of the highway…traffic can obviously wait)
7. People are hardworking. Very hardworking. Sometime back there was a problem with the water supply in one of the residential buildings here in Patna. One would imagine a havoc to occur…but it didn’t. for weeks people started walking down to the ground floor (some from the 7^th floor) every morning to get drinking water (I don’t know what they did for water for other “necessities”). Very hardworking…just that nobody suggested (or even thought) of getting the water supplied corrected.
8. You are not supposed to crib if you get power supply for more than 12 hours in a day. An AC room in a hotel usually means about 3-4 hours of guaranteed air conditioning at night.
9. You have a right to remain silent. Anything said to anyone in public can be used as evidence against you in a “well audienced” fist-fight!
10. Only rice is understood as proper food. Everything else is breakfast/snacks.