This may be an unfamiliar dateline but it has a rather familiar little Bihari tale to tell: of how Rabri and Laloo sat on a throne and of how Rabri and Laloo fell down quite prone; and not all the King?s Yadavs and not all the King?s Muslims could put Rabri and Laloo back up there again. The kindergarten years of Laloo Yadav?s constituency are over. It has come of age and it feels it has been taken for a ride. It is no longer prepared to dutifully dance to the master?s tune. ?Bahut vote diya Laloo Yadav ko aur unhone bahut asha diya, lekin asha ke sivay aur kya? (We gave a lot of votes to Laloo Yadav and he gave us a lot of hope, but beyond hope, what?),? The disillusionment of Suddhi Paswan and his cohabitants in the little Harijan settlement here is complete. ?Is baar kisi aur ko try karte hain (Let us try someone else this time).? Turki?s revolt is no ordinary matter; if it?s happening in Turki, it would be happening more vigorously elsewhere. Turki is one of the more successful laboratories of Laloo Yadav?s experiments in social justice. North and across the Ganges from Patna, this little village in the Muzaffarpur parliamentary constituency, saw the first of Laloo Yadav?s many charvaha (shepherd) schools established. And it was here too that the first foundations for pucca homes for Harijans were laid. About half a decade ago, some of us had come to Turki looking for clues to how Laloo Yadav had almost overnight become a messiah for Bihar?s poor and benighted. It didn?t take much investigating. Laloo had given them the respect and security of pucca homes, and he had given their children a school where they could not only learn vocational craft but also letters. No Harijan in these parts had had any previous opportunity for education; Laloo had given them the esteem that comes from the ability to write your own name. But most of all, Laloo had given the people of Turki the pleasure of his company. He came, not once but several times, and became one of them. ?Laloo Yadav used to be our man,? says Ram Dukhan, an asthma-ridden elder so perilously thin his torso looks like an X-ray plate. There is no flesh on him and when he wheezes, you can hear his bones jangle. ?Laloo used to be our man,? he says again, ?But then he stopped coming and he stopped caring. I don?t know why.? Today, Turki is a ready catalogue of reasons why the Laloo Magic is on the wane, part of the disease that has riddled Laloo with the symptoms of desperation; the furrows on his brow, his irritability, his utter loss of humour. Laloo had begun to crack jokes nobody would laugh at during the last Lok Sabha campaign. This time he is not even bothering. Once a wisecrack-a-minute man, the only bit of humour Laloo has come up with throughout this round of electioneering is to call the Janata Dal the Jantu (animal) Dal. Audiences have stopped participating in his humour because it is stale and it is contrived. Besides, he hasn?t really given his audiences much to laugh about really. Ask the Harijans of Turki. Their homes, once shining trophies of social justice, have turned into hovels. Some have fallen for lack of repair and others are on their way. Bela Musahar?s family never earned enough to eat, where would it find funds to maintain a pucca house? So once the walls cracked and fell three rains ago, he went back to living in a shack. ?It is much easier this way, this is the way we have lived for generations,? he says. His children ? four unclad rancid creatures ? are scouring slush nearby with a platoon of squealing pigs. The charvaha school nearby is an abandoned ruin. Wild grass overruns the compound, the classrooms are locked and their windowpanes shattered. There are no boys learning lessons here anymore; only their buffaloes grazing. ?The teachers never come,? says Suddhi Paswan, ?And when they come, they only come to collect their salaries perhaps. The boys stopped going a long time back.? Suddhi?s aunt, blinded by cataracts but aware of the world around her, chips in laconically, ?When Laloo came he said even the girls would go to school, but what happened? They are still making dungcakes on the walls. When he comes again, I will have a few questions to ask.? On our way back we cross a campaign jeep of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, a lantern mounted atop it, posters of Laloo and Rabri emblazoned on the sides. ?The Muslims and Yadavs are still strongly with us, don?t forget,? says the RJD campaigner, wishing away the disenchantment of Harijans, ?They make a strong combination.? But isn?t it true that what has given Laloo Yadav his runaway victories in the past is the strong support of Harijans?? ?Of course,? he says, ?And given the right promises, they will support him again.? Not any more in Turki. Not any more in a hundred other places. Laloo, for the Harijans, is a fallen king; they aren?t helping the Yadavs and Muslims put him back on the throne again.