I had gone to bihar interiors last week to attend a wedding.
I had been warned how unsafe it was.
Yet I thought I should go .
I had landed up at a place called Kahalgaon near Bhagalpur.
It is site of super thermal plant.
The person getting married is an OBC belonging to a rich farming family . 50% of his family lands had been taken over by Govt to build the power plant with
measly compensation.He tried going upto supreme court and lost the case.The promise of employment to one member of his family was also not fulfilled.
It is fertile land on banks of ganga.
The boys family owns most of the village . Huge mansion on 2000 sq metres with with nine bedrooms, two angans and 2 drawing rooms..
Trains mostly stop at night for couple of minutes . It was pitch dark and scary to put it mildly.
Though , the power plant produces 1000 MW, the villagers do not get power all the time.
But the person getting married assured me that it was absolutely safe.
I could not see any police presence anywhere.
The family of boy fed more than 1300 persons of the village for three days on account of the marriage.
I was put up in style with a car at my disposal.
I visited the ganga banks and went to old ruins of vikramshila university belonging to pala dynasty of 10th to 14th century.
There are some buddhist stupas -along with walls remaining. There is also anarchealogical museum with excavated pieces of that era
Probably these places were centres of buddhist learning.
Bihar /jharkand has places of buddhist interest like bodhgaya,rajgir,nalanda,vaishali,kushinagar.
But now most of bihar is in doldrums. There are only remnants of old civilisation.
The railways cannot be proud of their operations there. The express train I got into took 16 hours to perform a eight hour journey with 3 hours delay at starting
point , the reservation in trains is not respected much.
One feels it is a different world there.
I had been warned how unsafe it was.
Yet I thought I should go .
I had landed up at a place called Kahalgaon near Bhagalpur.
It is site of super thermal plant.
The person getting married is an OBC belonging to a rich farming family . 50% of his family lands had been taken over by Govt to build the power plant with
measly compensation.He tried going upto supreme court and lost the case.The promise of employment to one member of his family was also not fulfilled.
It is fertile land on banks of ganga.
The boys family owns most of the village . Huge mansion on 2000 sq metres with with nine bedrooms, two angans and 2 drawing rooms..
Trains mostly stop at night for couple of minutes . It was pitch dark and scary to put it mildly.
Though , the power plant produces 1000 MW, the villagers do not get power all the time.
But the person getting married assured me that it was absolutely safe.
I could not see any police presence anywhere.
The family of boy fed more than 1300 persons of the village for three days on account of the marriage.
I was put up in style with a car at my disposal.
I visited the ganga banks and went to old ruins of vikramshila university belonging to pala dynasty of 10th to 14th century.
There are some buddhist stupas -along with walls remaining. There is also anarchealogical museum with excavated pieces of that era
Probably these places were centres of buddhist learning.
Bihar /jharkand has places of buddhist interest like bodhgaya,rajgir,nalanda,vaishali,kushinagar.
But now most of bihar is in doldrums. There are only remnants of old civilisation.
The railways cannot be proud of their operations there. The express train I got into took 16 hours to perform a eight hour journey with 3 hours delay at starting
point , the reservation in trains is not respected much.
One feels it is a different world there.
