New Delhi - The way I see it

Disclaimer: - This article is a representation of my thoughts and the way I see things. I have used names of certain communities, surnames and places so that reader can bond with the article. This is not meant to offend any person, community or place.

King Dhritarashtra

Dhritarashtra was helpless, he was the king and the representative of the glorious Bharat clan, but he was a father. A helpless father. His son, the obstinate Duryodhana was not ready to give Hastinapur to the eldest Pandava Yudhisthira and hence Dhritarashtra had to make a tough decision – the division of the kingdom. The fertile, prosperous Hastinapur went to Duryodhana and the Khandavaprastha an infertile, uninhabited place went to the poor Pandavas. Krishna with his directions and Arjuna with his arrows cleared the forest and presented to the world one of the finest cities of all times which has constantly changed names but the very essence of it has remained constant, always. From Indraprastha to Lal Kot to Tughlaqabad to the modern New Delhi, the very essence of Delhi has always been there.

Delhi Taxi

Step out of the Indira Gandhi International Airport and you are welcomed by the extremes. Depending upon your time of arrival you will be welcomed by scorching heat, bone chilling cold or worse heavy downpour. The downpour however is almost always there - the downpour of attention. The name placards with all possible Punjabi surnames on them and their owners bellowing at their top. If you have a confused face, the downpour will only keep on intensifying, from slight nudge on the shoulders to a full body hug. The Dilliwaalahs are (in) famous for bestowing any token of love and warmth which can convert into some currency. If you have a haversack on your back, you will see tourist guides in large numbers; if you have a business attache in your hands, the suited hotel agent swarms will hug and caress you and if you have a traveling bag, the local hotel guys will smile seductively and regardless of your travel gears, the taxi drivers will do anything to snatch your stuff in the name of help and place them in their taxi boots. You will obviously be presented with mind boggling tariffs. If you are an obstinate negotiator, you will have something left in your wallet at the end of the trip. Negotiate is the moral of the story.

The Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway

And when you are in traffic, the whole jaw dropping phenomenon will find an entirely new dimension. India is a blessed country home to 84 crore gods and demigods. With the power of octane rich petrol and of course the benevolence of all 84 crore divine deities your vehicle glides, cruises, speeds and wriggles in the traffic behemoth. On a six lane expressway where all vehicles have been designated their respective lanes, a speeding SUV meandering on all six of them in an attempt to get ahead of all is the commonest of all sites. Scary for first timers but a routine sight for the regulars. And Delhi has more vehicles on its roads than rest three metros combined and Delhi is a network of fast track expressways, so the SUVs and their meanderings are infinite. Wear your seat belts is the moral of the story.

Celebrations in the street

And if you happen to be in the great western part of the city which is like a parallel system inside the otherwise posh and suave metropolis, your jaws will be under Newton’s spell, all the time. Wee hours of the night, boot of a car opened and converted into a makeshift bar and high bass Punjabi music engulfing the airs and a group of charged youth – spiked, turbaned, goateed, pierced and beefed up grooving their hips into a discordant blend of Bhangra, salsa, hip-hop and all possible forms of dance moves is not a very atypical sight. The high pitches of the songs welcomed by loud roars of enthusiasm and the delay between adjacent tracks unwelcomed by shrill hoots. Legends of Nizamuddin Auliya and Amir Khusro and Mirza Ghalib still live here and Dilliwaalahs love their music. And when you happen to cross such a scene, enjoy the music, silently praise the dance and get going. Don’t mess the combination of Alcohol and music is the moral of the story.

The Shiny new Possession

Dilliwaalahs are known for their fine lifestyle. Just one car in the garage is totally middle-class. People here live for luxury and not for bare needs. Survival is for lesser mortals, prosper is the Delhi way. And yes spaces are limited so the same neighbor who comes to your house every Diwali with a gift glittery and shining on the outside and having expensive nuts and chocolates and sweets in the inside wouldn’t hesitate in calling you names if you mess up with his parking space. Fair and Just. Hugs and smiles make everything all right, everyday. And if you purchase something you have all rights to show it off but being blatant and on the face spoils the party, Dilliwaalahs are sophisticated people so they utilize the power of random discussions. So you can blame the government for the bad roads and the pains you take while driving you new Honda city will be perfectly alright. You will invite appreciative glances as well. Or blame the RBI for revising their Repo rates all the times and the way your floating EMI interest for that 3 BHK you purchased in greater Noida for 85 Lacs keeps going up. Leave Buildings and cars, you can even moan about water scarcity and complaint how your expensive imported sanitary fittings have become useless. Likewise flaunt phones, scotches in your bar, salary appraisals, wedding saris and sherwanis. If you can present it in the right way no one minds. So in Delhi, Flaunt is the moral of the story.

Always wise to run away from such scenes

Delhi has always been praised for its Dil – the heart. But there is more to Delhi than just Dil. There are arms, there are legs and of course there is a mouth. In fact on a typical day you get to exercise the last three organs more than the heart. The catch is that you should know when and where to exercise these. Most of the times you need to keep the mouth shut because one slip of the slimy muscle inside it can lead you to all sorts of trouble. Of course you can use your legs to run away or hands to fold and ask for mercy. But if you have other homo sapiens with you who you can trust, you can use your mouth to hurl abuses and hands to punch and legs to stay firm on the ground. In a busy traffic you can again use your mouth to throw abusive words on the pedestrians and motorists to scatter the traffic. If the traffic is not muddled but that idiot is not allowing to you to overtake, you can use your hands to show him the middle finger once you get past him. As you learn the life here you will also become an expert in the skilled use of these awesome organs. So make professional use of your hand, legs and mouth is the moral of the story.

Zero Ambiance,100% taste

Dilliwaalahs love their food too and in Delhi messier the lanes, tastier the food. The Kohli’s, Kakkas, Chawalas and Pammis are everywhere each claiming to be that one famous restaurateur from Old Delhi. One generous meal and you overshoot your calorie limit for the whole week. Paranthas in the Paranthe waali Gali, Street food in Bengali Market, Seekh Kebab and Tandoori Chicken in Chandni Chowk. Forget the butter dripping from the Rotis just indulge into the gastronomic delights of this ancient city. Delhi is more about taste than ambiance and if you are a sucker for ambiance, this place offers you hotels and restaurants that can supply mouth melting delights provided you have enough cement to cover the holes these places would drill into your pockets. Nevertheless, when in Delhi indulge in food without caring for the ambiance is the keyword.

Delhi - you just can't ignore it

Delhi is a confusing place but in that case India is a confusing country. We love to break rules, we love drawing urine maps on the desolate walls and we love staining the public wash basin with Paan and Betel nut jets. Staying in Delhi is like staying in all cities of India together. You have the rawness of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar here, the royalty of Rajasthan here, the eerie silence of Madhya Pradesh and the wildness of Punjab here; you will even find Tamil Nadu in the common law abiding man here and the coolness of Goa in the stylish females here. From English speaking suave youth from south Delhi to the Chaste Punjabi speaking west Delhi guy, from that well dressed guy in Vasant Kunj to that fashion disaster from Trans Yamuna, you have them all here. Delhi for me is the epicenter of all diversities in the world. Women here will pester the street vendor for 10 Rs but will never step into an eating joint which is cheap or is at least close to being cheap. Girls here will mesmerize you with their looks but can deafen you with their decibel rich voice.  People here contradict themselves sometimes for good and sometimes for the evil and this makes Delhi a rough but an interesting place to live in. It’s not easy to hate something or fall in love with something but Delhi will make you love it and hate it every day. From just another city to the place where you live, finally Delhi becomes a state of your mind.

The Temple of Liberation

We get pissed, we get excited; we get contented and we get poignant but we Indians know how to give words and voices to our moods. We express the fair, but conceal the dark in any of the four chambers of our hearts or any gray cell in our cerebrums. But we divulge them when time comes and we travel sleeper class and we use their toilets and their walls.

I remember one of the walls shouting at the-then-hot-political-agenda in Maharashtra. Biharis shouting at Marathis and calling them goons and the latter calling the formers outsiders and job-snatchers; a classic tussle scribbled in grimy handwriting. There was a rough caricature of a renowned firebrand politician with a frog like face, hidden behind rimless spectacles and well-gelled hairs combed neatly. There were poetries and shayaris and randomness. Any politician pouring his liquid gold down the drain could have sensed the unrest but they travel first class and use their toilets but not their walls. Their wall is called the Parliament.

We are a sex starved nation. Though Vatsyayan wrote the 1250 verses of Kamasutra in the 2nd century CE for Indians to learn and memorize, But we have continued to enlighten the west and we have continued being the land of snake charmers and Sadhus and Software Engineers and Call centre executives. So Sex is perhaps the least discussed but the most thought over topic in India. We keep concealing it till we find the wall of liberation. So they draw, they write and they croon about their wildest sexual fantasies. The outer guise of a gentleman or rather a pretentious godly creature is flushed down by rusty manual pipe of the lavatory and the gentle, inventive Satan clouds the white walls.

Relationships and breakups are all immortalized in this temple. Love stricken hearts praising their lady loves, one sided lovers writing their undeliverable love letters to the damsels, broken hearts shouting at their once-a-goddess-now-a-whores; Some even making their mobile numbers public, their way of taking revenge banking on the fact that once a urinating deity will read it and impart justice. Fair? Unfair? Their and theirs to decide?

Unpleasant letters to parents, frustration about receding hairline and bulging paunches, complaints about existence and every dark emotion which is not conceivable under the sun finds its mention inside the temple of liberation and its sacred walls which is better selling than the best bestsellers bringing a smile, a frown or any emotion every time a reader reads it.

India is a land of Public speakers and private thinkers. We shout, we fight, we forget. We smile on their faces, we crib at their backs and we love to hold grudges. We are a shining metal pot, but our water tastes of rust, the inners are not that well polished. And when we come to ourselves with no human scent around, we feel liberated. And we shout and cry our worries out. That’s our way of lightening ourselves. A marker and a washroom wall is what we need, the most disgusting civic practice but we love it.

...And we say it's a man's world

It’s so difficult to write about a specie which has over 10000 poems, a million songs and so many broken hearts to its credit. The Internet Search Engine giant Google has made billions because of this specie. Add “Hot”, “Sexy”, “Sensuous”, “Cute”, “Beautiful” and all look good-feel good adjectives to this specie’s name and you get so many results. No prizes for guessing that I am talking about the fairer sex, the Ladies who claim being at the back of every successful man. I am still not sure if “being at the back” act comes first or “a man turning successful”, though If I go by my whims, I support the latter.

Men, by nature of their behavior, style, dressing, talking and eating are simple and if not simple they are pretty effortless. Women have different moods for different occasions. Women persona ranges from a Kid, to a Nanny, to a School principal, to a grandmother and sometimes as weird as a circus ringmaster. And defining on grounds of dressing habit, Girls are complex again. While our sneakers fit in a party, a pub, a discothèque, a long drive and sometimes even with office formals, women bless the occasions with stiletto, High Heel Pump, Low Heel Pump, Ankle boot and Suede Mules respectively(I googled for it)

While Men have a broad classification for food, Vegetarian and Non Vegetarian, and for us breakfast would be a little chicken and meal would be lots of it, Women again have lots of tongue twisters for their food as well. Overcooked, Undercooked, Deep fried, Shallow Fried, Low on Fat, High on Carbs, Mathematics is a good thing to know but why associate food with it? Anyways, to each his own. We prefer drinking at home, why spend five times the actual cost, at those stylish pubs and restro-bars, women love drinking at these high end places and often(always) the smiling man on the other side of the table bears the brunt of it. Smiling, yeah right!

When four men congregate, they talk about sports, when four women assemble, they talk about Apparels and accessories. Men accept compliments very gracefully, Women don’t e.g. – Hey Mr. X you look great today! “Thank you so much mate”. Hey Miss Y you look great today! “What do you mean TODAY?” While men like to read the newspaper in the order of importance, Headlines – Current Affairs – Sports and so on, Women almost always are satisfied with the four page fashion and Trends supplement. Men have a big wardrobe, stuffed with a few clothes but they somehow fit every occasion. Women have big wardrobes, neatly filled with clothes, which when transferred to an Air-conditioned store might constitute a full fledged apparel store, but “I have nothing to wear” is the most common feminine complaint. A man repeats his shirt after every four day, a woman repeats her Top after every four months. Talking about choices Men like beautiful (Just beautiful) women, Women on the other hand like chivalrous, caring, successful, rich, confident, funny, courageous, well mannered good looking men. Well in independent packages we fit the bill but talking in collective terms, this is literally impossible and “Impossible”, for a change this time does not say “I-m-possible”.

But in spite of all these not-so-good traits, the magnetic effect of the fairer sex is unexplainable. Men do cry about the bads that the his love interest might have done to him , but there is no denying that he would still get up and jump headfirst at the next beautiful lady in line. Female gender is a beautiful artwork of the almighty and they make this world a confusing, yet a beautiful place to live. And as the famous quote says “Sure God created man before woman, but then again you always make a rough draft before creating the final masterpiece”

Malls, Rickshaw and a pair of socks!

After four years of Engineering, I got job at this reputed multi national firm. The best part I was in Gurgaon, near Delhi home to the best North Indian food and hottest girls in India. I was overwhelmed by the sudden change and welcomed it with arms stretched wide. I was still passing my idle time of final year when I got a call from the company’s HR department that I need to be present in person to collect the letter of appointment and also undergo the routine medical check up.
The farewell parties, booze parties, grass parties and all sorts of nonsense final year parties were going full speed and it was a pain to miss any one of them. But, what choice I had. I planned to go reluctantly. “Formal clothing” is one of the many things that a student has to graduate to when he steps into the professional world. I relate formal clothing to formal thinking, formal planning and formal implementation of thoughts, ideas and actions. While casual denotes liberation, formal denotes discipline both having their own beauty. Anyways, I was devoid of any formal attire and I was supposed to wear formals at the place. And hence started my hunt for formal clothes, I could not find any. Our wardrobes were cluttered with un-pressed shirts, mud soaked jeans, dirty socks and underwears but I managed to grab two pieces of clothes; a shirt and a trouser which were very near to what formal clothes are, but I could not find a pair of clean socks. “There are lots of malls on MG road, buy socks from one of them what is the big deal”, suggested one of my friend who was an inhabitant of Gurgaon.
Eight hours of train journey and I was here in Gurgaon. They call it the Shanghai of India, the millennium city. Skyscrapers, Offices, IT parks, Discotheques, Pubs and lots and lots of Malls, Gurgaon is very different from Lutyen’s Delhi which is still a bit old, classy and tattered. Limousines, Mercedes and BMWs were speeding around and I was enjoying the polished look of the city. In offices people draped in finest clothes and speaking on the costliest phones were walking around. This is modern India where people don’t think before spending and I would be a part of this elite crowd very soon. But for now I had to go to the office and I had three hours in hand and had to buy a pair of socks first. There were beautiful malls standing around.

I went to one of them, but the Mall was devoid any sort of crowd. I enquired with the gatekeeper and he said “It’s Tuesday and very limited stores are open today and no clothing shop is open so try other malls.” I went to other malls and they had similar answers. And I was disgusted, how do I go to the office without socks? There was a rickshaw waiting near the mall. I went to him and asked if there was any garment shop around so that I can buy a pair of socks. The Rickshaw puller, a frail person, with pepper and salt hair and sun burnt skin was looking like an ugly patch on the shining Gurgaon outfit. He said there would be no shops open; he can try in the nearby Chakkarpur market but can not guarantee. I had no option so I obeyed him in dismay and the Rickshaw sped towards the destination.
I have this curious habit of talking to people around so I started chatting with him. I came to know that his name was "Kishan" and he was from some small town in West Bengal. He came to Delhi 15 years back in search of a job; preferably a gate keeper’s job but he could not get any. He then, sold some belongings in his home to buy a Rickshaw and hence started his story. He moved to Gurgaon three years back because according to him in Delhi there is a fierce competition and he wanted to live in peace. We were in Chakkarpur market and all the shops were closed and hence now I had no place to go. Gurgaon the place of shining malls had no shop that could offer me a pair of socks.
Seeing my worried face, now the Rickshaw puller slipped in the chatty mood. He enquired “What is that you require so urgently?”.
“Nothing, not your business anyways”, I replied.
“Okay, but you can at least tell me, may be I can help you out!”, he continued.
“You can surely help me, only if you have a clothes store of your own”, I was still frustrated
“Tell me, I’ll try to help you out”, he replied
“Alrite, I need a pair of socks, now tell me how can you help me out”, I said.
“I can help you for sure but only if you agree to take my socks, they are brand new”, he replied.
“What, your socks”, I said more to myself than to him
“Okay, only if they are new”, I continued.
“Sure sir lets move, you are getting late”. He replied and indicated me to take a seat.
And the Rickshaw sped again. We passed the same Offices and Malls and he turned into one of the lanes. The Roads started becoming narrower and narrower and the scenes around changed drastically. The skyscrapers were now 1 storey high houses with crumbling cement and weathered paints. The malls were not there, I saw one or two low lit damp shops but they had customers flocking. There was no elite crowd in fine clothing and expensive phones but people walking around in dirty torn clothes. There were no BMWs around, I saw Rickshaws, so many of them parked neatly near the building boundaries.
“What place is this, looks horrible”, I enquired
“Horrible to you, home to us, anyways this is my home, come on get down, I’ll give you my socks.” He answered.

I entered his place. There were 8-9 rooms in a line and all of them housed a full family. The roofs were low and ground was damp. There was a hand pump outside where people were bathing and many were waiting for their turn. But they were looking like a society where one man was pushing the hand pump bar, the other was bathing and the third was cleaning the floor. I entered inside his so called home. It was very small for a family of four. He opened a trunk, put aside some clothes and then pulled out a pair of brand new navy blue socks. I took them greedily.
“So do you wear shoes too, otherwise why did you purchase socks?”, I asked
“I seldom wear them, I have an old pair of shoes but one of my cousins is getting married next month”, he replied
“I hence bought my wife a new saree and kids new clothes, did not have much money left for me so bought socks for now, would buy shirt if I happen to save something”, he finished and smiled bluntly.
Why was he smiling? I was clueless. I was still in the millennium city where people do not think before spending money. In the same city a hardworking Rickshaw Puller could buy only a pair of socks from all his savings. I tried giving him money but he did not accept that. He said “You are still studying, once you start earning come here and pay me back”. Persuasion was useless because he was an obstinate honest person. I agreed and he dropped me back to the make-believe world. Here I was, sitting in an Air conditioned room wearing an artificial smile on the face.
After I joined the firm, I went back to the place to pay him back but I came to know that the man has left this place. No body had a clue as to where he is at present. They said that sometimes he is seen pulling his rickshaw around in Gurgaon. I would indeed love to see him back and thank him for what ever good he did to me. Through this story I just wanted to tell him that a person in the elite crowd still owes a pair of socks to him.

The Fri“GAY” Night

Yeah, so it dawned on one of us that we must go to a Discotheque tonight. Friday, night the end of a stressful week and also the first Friday of the month which ensures our pockets are all stuffed with notes. All my friends used to talk about Gurgaon night life and I ruled them over by saying Night Life is only for the call center guys who have no other option but to live this so called rock star’s life.

Probably I never wanted to be a part of the youth brigade that sips beer and taps feet on wild music in closed rooms with flash lights going on and off every alternate wink. But yeah, I was game enough to be a part of my room mate’s decision.
And it started with a beer marathon at our place. We discussed work and our future prospects in the first round. The Second round was dedicated to all the hot chicks in every conceivable place under the sun. In third round, we started calling up our college friends and talking all non sense with them. That was an alarm for us that the alcohol has made its way to our cerebrum. We still completed our fourth round and set off for the Disc. 
 
I have been single all through my life, probably because there is absolutely no room for inspiration. I always belonged to an all male groups where no body had a girl friend. My present room mates are all single and try at every girl who have their eyes and ears at proper places but fail without a fail. And, I work in an all Male team at my office too. So While we were speeding to the destination, our chief talks were girls, how to approach them, how to convince them for a dance and how to god knows what?

The Discotheques are weird places, they allow couples to enter for free and charge money from the single ones. Algorithm is all weird, we are the ones who need partners so we should be encouraged but here they encourage the already engaged ones. Anyways, we could have broken the rules by trespassing, but the sheer size of the bouncers prevented us from even thinking that. And we entered and flocked at a common place.

There was this person in our group who made us realize that we are not drunk enough to approach a girl. And I don’t know why but we agreed to him. Solution, drink more and we started drinking again at almost four times the price that we could have got from a local shop. After 2 Pints of beers I resigned and so did everyone. The chain initiator however stayed till 4 pints. 

Now, five already drunk guys who drank again to an extent that their feet weren’t able to support them standing, started dancing. I felt like standing still, and felt everything else trembling. But then realized after some time that I was the one dancing. I have been a terrible dancer through out my life. I tried my hands at dandiya once, but the girl stopped talking to me after that. It was only after four days, I came to know that I hit her finger multiple times that night.

Anyways, The Alcohol started its magic and I started mine too. “Atul Mishra, here” would you dance with me, lamest of all pick up lines but they were working. Girls were actually coming up to dance with me. I tried to wear the smartest of expressions on my face and they were working. Almost all the girls, I approached agreed to dance with me. I felt like a stud and thought of making my friends a little jealous and turned towards them and introduce them to the new refined version of Atul Mishra. But to my shock I realized, all of them were dancing with girls, piping hot all of them. I was surprised and then thought this is one lucky Friday. I kept dancing with the hottest girl that I found for half an hour. And then I thought of exchanging numbers with her. 

“Buy me a Tequila first”, the girl said. “Sure” I said. “Hey Wait, what did you say?” I asked again. “I said buy me a Tequila first”, she replied. The Voice was too husky for a woman wand was relatively shrill for a man. I was bewildered. I talked to her again to make sure that my conclusion, and GOD I was correct. I was dancing with a half male from half an hour. Then I thought I should talk to all the girls I came across and Yeah, all of them were what I guessed.

I was now sure that my friends were sailing in the same boat. I went to each of them and talked to their partners. And Yes, all of them were GAY and happy. Now, I went to the one of the Bouncers and asked what the matter is and here is what I came to know.
The Delhi High Court has passed a historic verdict by legalizing consensual homosexuality.It was an all GAY night and they were celebrating their victory. Good for them, I thought but could it be any worse for us.All the alcohol was gone in a minute and we were laughing at each other. Probably I never wanted to be a part of the youth brigade that sips beer and taps feet on wild music in closed rooms with flash lights going on and off every alternate wink. Probably, I was right.

I am Patna

I stretch quietly along the banks of the Ganges; my eyes have seen it all. The rise and fall of empires, the echoes of victors, the throes of the vanquished, I have heard it all. I have felt the violence and bloodshed and have cherished the peace sermons. My old eyes still remember the glory of the Gupta Kings and the unparalleled bravery of Mauryas, the grandeur of the nawabs of Bengal and the tyranny of the British Raj. My womb gave birth to Guru Govind Singh; the world knows that battle he fought and his temple Takht HarMandir Sahib still stands proudly on my chest. I am Patna, the modern Patliputra, my history as old as history itself.I still stretch along the Ganges, thinning shoreline it has now. I don’t see the elephants and cavalries marching, nor do I hear the sounds of the trumpet now. I see a busy city waking up everyday with the rising sun. I see the swirls of dust as people leave their ways for their work. I hear something something of everyone which eventually turns into nothing. I see the unity in diversity, blank faces, cheerful faces, moaning faces, laughing faces, welcoming faces, frowning faces but yes every face has got something to offer. I am Patna, the hometown of countless inquisitive brains.

Come to me when vermillion smeared foreheads bow to the sun, to pay their respect and gratitude to it. The Chhath Pooja where all one can see is the banks of the Ganga packed to the brim, all one can hear, the sweet sounds of the folk songs and all one can feel is the warmth of human love. The crackers of the Diwali burst whole night as if fighting to kick out the age old silences of ignorance. The crowd of Dussehra, where it seems as if every individual in the crowd is trying to take out the RAM hidden inside him. The delicacies of Eid, you can still find them in the old dark lanes of mine.

Fa-Hein has described my beauty in his travel accounts and Megasthanese was out of words when he was confining my beauty to his book Indaka. When the whole India was sleeping in deep dreams of unawareness, I took the pains of enlightening the dark minds. Gautam Buddha prophesized that I would be the greatest city in the world someday but he told that I would fall prey to fire and water still he missed the biggest factor that I felt prey to, Human greed!

Yes, I fell prey to the human greed. My old glory was raped by everyone who came to rule me. Everyone was thinking about him, his family, his own near and dears but every one forgot their Patna. When whole India was undergoing an economic transmutation, my greedy sons were busy plucking every conceivable thing from my soil. They looted their own home and fled like a dacoit. And, they left me crawling in the lowly dusts. When every Indian was erecting infrastructures for the coming generations, my sons were demolishing the towers of my ancient glory.


And, when this turbulence was over, I was just a piece of land. Fertile, I still was but no one wished to plant on me. My sons were still intelligent but they felt insulted to be my sons. The very feel of being attached to Patna in any shape or form was a matter of indignity for my residents. The opportunities vanished, the hopes shattered and I was christened the undeveloped part of a developing nation. Poverty that never even thought about me in her wildest dreams clutched me in her claws and hence due to a handful of betrayers, all sons of mine started suffering.

But, highs and lows are the essential constituents of god’s plan. I saw the highest of crests in my golden times and then saw the deepest trench of failures. My sons have realized the importance of their old mother, and slowly but steadily they are changing the face of mine. I am now crawling out of the mud. I am breaking the shackles of dogma and myths and I am opening my eyes to the new changes. I see a bright future which my sons have promised me. I hope they would gift me my old glories back. I have led the world in the past and I am sure I will do it in Future again.