Bihar is the third-most-populous state of India, occupying the lower reaches of the Gangetic plain before it becomes the delta in Bengal. It is home to some 83 million people, making it more populous than Germany (or France, or a whole lot of countries), though it has the approximate GDP ($21bn) of El Salvador. Here's another fact: it is shit.
I don't expect you to just take my word for it. Allow me to quote the opinion of a rural development expert, none other than the estimable Ghostface Buddha Sr.,
"Bihar is KNOWN as the worst, and poorest, and most corrupt, and most hopeless part of India. Kind of like the right and left armpit of India."So there you have it. He continues on an anecdotal note
"I remember it as basically flat. I think it was there that some family came up to me and asked me to take one of their daughthers. Happened twice, so I can’t quite remember the geography. I do remember the face of the little girl, probably something in the 7 to 9 year range..."Shit, Bihar: synonymous.
As for my own experience of Bihar, I must tell you that with the exception of the gem-like island of tranquillity that is Bodhgaya, every moment I passed in Bihar was pervaded by some form of discomfort or disgust. It is indeed a flat place, and (you may be tired of hearing this) ungodly hot. I knew of its poverty beforehand, but was shocked by just how goddamn hideous every single thing is, and how Bihar manages to incredibly surpass the rest of India in just about every conceivable category of awfulness. Passing through every one of the interchangeable villages I sat there with my jaw hanging: I didn't know Indian villages could so much more ramshackle than the thousands I've already passed through. Every building in Bihar looks like it was built last Tuesday and is destined to collapse next Monday. Half-naked people lie in the dirt beneath the full-wall murals for cement companies, which is standard in India, but horrifyingly ironic on an off-kilter house made of bricks without the benefit of mortar. Every village had the same trio of fly-covered babies, stoop-backed old crones harvesting rice, and filthy miserable-looking buffaloes.
There is nowhere to eat in Bihar. Where other Indian states have their standard semi-depressing canteens, Bihar has "restaurants" in disused concrete storage units where dirty, unschooled children work night and day serving customers virulent plates of rice and insipid dal. After several such meals I swore aloud that if I couldn't find a place that served bread, vegetables, or anything other than poorly cooked fucking rice, I would shit all over Bihar. And after several such meals, trust me, that was not an idle threat.
I became ill almost immediately upon entering the state, and was miraculously cured of that illness immediately upon exiting. A microbial conspiracy schemed to prevent me from taking my vengeance on Bihar. A foolish choice of adversary. As I told one comrade, "The pen is mightier than the festering sword wound." Any foe of mine shall know infamy beyond death.
I at least had the advantage of finally being back on Hindi-speaking turf. For the first time in months, I could read the local script... an ability that sets me apart from about 53% of Biharis. The literacy rates in Bihar are dismal, and even more dismal for women. In fact pretty much any statistic you care to name will be head-crackingly terrible. Child labor, income, sanitation, murder, kidnappings, caste violence, corruption, malnutrition. Looking over a sheet of such figures I found myself rubbing my eyes and going "What the hell? How could [Terrible Thing A.] be twice the national average? In fucking India?"
Bihar is in fact so bad that in the year 2000, its southern half broke away to form the state of Jharkhand. Jharkhand -a back asswards collection of impoverished hills and jungles where cartoonishly evil mining companies rape the land and the local tribal peoples are caught between Maoist armies and militia-wielding Indian versions of Montgomery Burns- apparently felt that Bihar was holding it back.
Even the music videos are worse in Bihar. Worse than normal Indian music videos? Trust me, after you spend 10 hours on a bus watching a handful of teenagers dance off beat in someone's back yard to terribly auto-tuned Hindi songs (not "fashionably" auto-tuned, mind you; auto-tuned because they can't hold a note to save their lives), you will concur.
I don't know where the worst shithole in all of Bihar is (I wouldn't dare a thorough exploration), but I can tell you the biggest: the state capital, Patna.
You know I of all people would not say this lightly, especially given the formidable competition for the dishonor of the title I now bestow, but Patna might be the worst fucking place I have ever been. It was the capital of the Mauryan Empire (the largest such realm in Indian history), which prospered around the time of the Buddha, an almost legendary age of cultural richness. Clearly, it has been all downhill for about 25 centuries. I shan't bother repeating my criticisms of large Indian cities; just know that Patna is exactly the same but somehow, just...worse. It is poorer and uglier than the rest, but what really seems to be lacking is a sense of hope. In any other Indian city you get the feeling that, OK, maybe there is no clean plumbing here now, but neither was there in 1823; they'll get to it, however torturous the path of progress may be. In Patna you just feel like it will be shit forever. After another 2500 years of such decline, Patna will cease to even be shit: it will be the human race's first cultural coprolite.
Towering in the center of Patna is its most prominent building: the nuclear power station. Fitting, that they should put it in a wasteland prior to its inevitable meltdown. Granted, as ominous and disgusting as it appears, it is the only structure in a hundred-mile radius that doesn't look like it's about to collapse and kill about two dozen diseased chickens.
Now, as I mentioned, the exception to all this is the town of Bodhgaya, a place which is at the very heart of Bihar's history but owes all of its current prosperity to foreigners. Bodhgaya was the site of no less momentous event than the moment when the ascetic sage and prince Siddharta Gautama found enlightenment under a bodhi tree and became the Buddha. The site was "hidden" for centuries. Or rather, people knew what it was, but these people were brahmin priests who owned the land and concealed it in a spiteful anti-Buddhist coverup. Now, "found" by European scholars, it has flourished as the ultimate pilgrimage site for all the world's Buddhists. Aside from the Mahabodhi temple, which towers over the spot where Buddha sat and shades a 'grandchild' of the famous tree, the entire town is now dotted with foreign Buddhist temples and monasteries. Buddhist orders from the likes of Japan, China, Thailand, Bhutan, Burma, Tibet, Vietnam and more have all put up beautiful edifices here, and a stroll around Bodhgaya is like a gallery of Asian art and architecture.
Surprisingly, in the Buddhist "off-season", most of the visitors are Hindus (as are the site officials, oddly). Before the place was "covered up" outright, the brahmins hatched an equally crafty plot many centuries ago and declared that the Buddha was in fact a new incarnation of Vishnu (and that said incarnation of Vishnu was being misheard when he spoke about a new faith and ignoring caste divisions and the ritual power of brahmin priests. How convenient). The result is that packs of Vishnu worshippers shuffle from temple to temple, being loud, swarm-y, and generally Hindu... to the consternation of the Buddhist monks and pilgrims whose Buddhist composure is clearly being put to the test. You frequently run into Buddha statues that have been completely smothered in paste, flowers, and weirder offerings as per the Hindu custom. The temple authorities have at least conceded to put up very large signs demanding silence for the benefit of their Buddhist guests, lest the Vaishnavite Hindus spark a surreal holy war with the monks by walking into the world's most important Buddhist temple screaming and manically ringing bells.
I also made a trip out of Bodhgaya to the tiny hill of Dungeshwari, a rock-strewn, arid waste containing the very cave in which the sage Siddhartha Gautama spent six years in the most stringent self-deprivation before he abandoned the course of extreme ascetism and got to the important business of founding Buddhism. As I entered the dark little cave I got a tingle down my spine even more powerful than whan I laid eyes upon the shady arboreal spot where the Buddha became enlightened. There in the cave, out in the desolate Bihari countryside, there was nothing but a single, haunting statue of the Buddha in a near-skeletal state of emaciation, yet with a tiny, serene smile on his face. It was quite possibly the most memorable statue I have ever beheld.
On the way back to Bodhgaya past the gauntlet of beggars, dying livestock, and abandoned push-wagons I couldn't help but be shaken out of the spell and reminded I was still in Bihar. I spent the remainder of the afternoon as I intended, testing if the peace and tranquility around the great bodhi tree would lead me to any wisdom. Instead, my thoughts drifted, as they often do, to my own journey. Why do I keep pressing on like this through so many terrible areas and continue punishing myself? This can't be the way. Yet it's neccessary, for spending one's life completely in rest and pleasure is not only aimless but unfulfilling. What, it must be asked, is the best way to live?
Then, as I, Ghostface Buddha, sat in contemplation beneath the great bodhi tree, it struck me: there must be an inspired compromise. There must be some sort of...Middle Way...
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