My days in Bihar

I               Bihar out of the blue

“Would you be interested in working in Bihar?” asked the International Development Agency India Human Resources Chief Margaret Jenkins. She was perhaps impressed with my editorial skills. I had concluded an editing assignment with International Development Agency in which I had approached the document with the warrior-like spirit of a journalist. Any piece of writing needs to begin making sense from the very first sentence, I had been taught at The Times of India desk. An eager learner on my first job, I had applied the lesson to the voluminous documents that were handed to me by International Development Agency. They were written knowledgably but the meaning was hidden in the verbal web the authors had woven around them. If the meaning was simply expressed and allowed to shine on the surface, perhaps there would be very few pages to fill for the experts.

I had cut through the web and extricated the meaning out of its hideout which had left Ms Jenkins and the deputy director for India, Jenny Ironside, somewhat impressed. “Editor,” Ms Ironside had remarked while looking at the coagulation of red on the sheets, “these documents are from New York!” which meant that the papers I had been asked to have a go at were sacred, prepared by professionals at the International Development Agency headquarters. They were believed to be beyond questioning in content and style. Yet, they had been found to be need editing – the reason why I was hired for the job.

I was not expecting an invitation to join the great organization International Development Agency is, but here was Ms. Jenkins, asking me if she could invite me to attend an interview.

Part of the reason to invite me for the interview was that Bihar was the least preferred of the International Development Agency office locations in India (Raipur was yet to arrive on scene) and few wanted to go there. Under the rule of Lalu Yadav’s wife, Rabri Devi, who was, I suppose, adequately supported by her husband who was embroiled in the fodder scam which had cost him his job, the state had acquired the reputation of being an unsafe place. Ms Devi had done little to dispel the view or improve the state of Bihar’s governance. It was believed that some of her relatives were beneficiaries of the criminalization of the state. Bihar had shot to fame internationally, which was extremely uncommon for an India state, but this was because it was the poorest in India, with human development indicators at the very bottom among Indian states. There were apparently no jobs in the state, and hordes of people had migrated to work in different parts of India as factory labour, agricultural labour, rickshaw pullers and performers of other menial jobs. Outside Bihar, there was a chance they would not die of starvation.

Bihar made news every now and then, but the only news that ever came out of Bihar was about violence, people being killed in Naxalite attacks, train robberies, road robberies, murders and kidnappings. For the easily shocked people of Delhi, a number of crimes taking place in India’s capital were traced to Bihar with murderers and kidnappers going to hide in the state which had further sullied the reputation of the state.

I was in my early thirties and the spirit of adventure was alive in me. However, I thought for a while as I weighed the option. Bihar was not entirely unknown to my family which is from Uttar Pradesh. My father was an officer with Bata in Mokama, about 80 kilometres from Patna, when I was born (in Lucknow, my mother’s city) and neither he nor I had had the occasion of visiting the state since we left it in the early 1970’s. Bihar was notorious for violence even at that time and in our five years in Mokama, there were numerous instances of crime our family had witnessed or been close to.

An attempt was made on my father’s life when he was returning home after night duty and could not help but see smugglers at work. My mother still recalls the day when she saw a man being stabbed at a paan shop outside our house. Her head reeled and as she fell, my father was by her side to hold her. When I was three, someone had tried to whisk me away while my father made a purchase at the Bata store where he got a hefty discount. A factory worker recognised me and raised an alarm while the kidnapper fled and was never seen again. In the very first year of our stay in Patna, our house had been burgled and my mother’s precious jewellery and other valuables which had been passed on to her from the previous generations had been lost irretrievably.

But that was more than thirty years ago. Bihar had changed – I was not sure whether it was for better or for worse. If my father could leave the balmy beaches of Cochin and Trivandrum where he served the Indian Navy as a Short Service Commission officer, live in Bihar and come out alive with his family, I probably would as well.

“You look preoccupied,” said Ms Jenkins when she did not get an immediate and exuberant ‘yes’ from me. It was less about me and more about Bihar, she knew, and I was making up my mind.

“I will be happy to be interviewed,” I said. A smile lit her face. I did not know then that she had been trying to fill up this position for a long time without success. In some cases, the applicants had not met the International Development Agency norm and in some others Bihar had deterred them.

Ms Jenkins was quick to act and immediately telephoned the Bihar state representative, the inimitable Alice Atwood. An interview panel was arranged during one of the country management team meetings at The Oberoi where I met Alice and the representative of another state. Some tough questions were put to me and I answered with utmost frankness and lack of reserve so as to let luck intervene on my behalf if I was indeed making a bad decision. At the end, it seemed I had done well at the interview because the panel members beamed smiles at me while looking approvingly at the documents I had edited.

A few days later, my appointment letter arrived and I was asked when I could leave for Bihar. It seemed that my predecessor, who had been assigned to Lucknow but had not been able to move since there was no knowing when his replacement would arrive, had hurriedly packed his bags and left Patna. I agreed on a date, said farewell to my wife who was expecting our second baby, and left for Bihar with a heavy heart.

 “Don’t give up your job as yet,” I told her. “I may not adjust,” I told her weakly.

It was a gloomy day when I left for Patna, Bihar’ capital. I did not throw a tantrum like I did when I travelled to take up a scholarship in London. Before leaving for London with my bags packed, I had the sixth-sense insight about my plane crashing en route London. With my bags before me, I lay on the bed mournfully, telling my wife not to force me to travel as I was sure she would never see me again. 

This time, the feeling was similar but since the plane journey was shorter – a little more than an hour – I was less apprehensive. International Development Agency had booked me on Alliance Air, a subsidiary of Indian Airlines, which had been created so that all old planes could be herded together and if one of these crashed it would not affect the reputation of Indian Airlines since technically it was a different company. One of the Alliance Aircraft planes had recently crashed in Patna, a thought which gave me a great deal of discomfort.

What really made me sure the plane was going to crash was the sight of a former colleague whom I met on the plane. An intuition had revealed to me a few years ago that he would die in a plane crash. As though it was my fate to be punished for gaining an unauthorised insight into the unknowable, I would join him today, it seemed – a cruel plan of fate. I was even more certain of it when the Alliance Air crew dispensed with the customary safety announcements. I saw in this a tacit acceptance of their fate and their complete submission to it. What safety procedures would help in a plane sure to crash? I braced myself, prayed to God, and started the journey towards Patna.

The plane trembled noisily as it took off. It was rickety like an old car that is too old to be invested in for repairs and would break down on the way one day and abandoned there. If the plane broke down mid-air, there would only be debris to pick up.

The engines hummed and droned as the plane gained height, and I was completely distracted by the sight of the beautiful snow-clad peaks of the Himalayas that ran parallel to the course of the flight. It was not the era of low budget airlines and Alliance Air hostesses served piping hot snacks which I devoured hungrily since it could well have been my last meal. I soon dozed off and was woken up by a huge jolt that suggested my fears had finally come true. An announcement followed that we had landed in Patna. I rubbed my eyes and saw I was indeed on the runway of the Jai Prakash Narain airport. The plane now braked violently and unlike other landings I had experienced in which the brakes were eased in a few seconds, the intensity of braking did not change until the plane nearly stopped. I saw a man standing among the tall grass surrounding the tarmac. He was holding a gun but was not in a uniform. When he raised the gun and fired, I realized his job was to scare off birds.

The plane turned, and as it did I saw that it had reached the boundary wall of the airport. If it had not braked so strongly, we would have hit the wall. I later learnt that Patna has a runway so small that it was regarded to be unsafe.

Uncertain of what lay before me, I stepped out of the plane, ready to embrace my fate.