The air war over these skies is over, choppers have stopped cutting scars overhead as their mighty occupants scurried about trying to stitch up victory. This campaign’s done, the warriors have moved farther afield with their many fangled wares. There’s almost a sense of relief among people now that the only clamour left is their own.
For most of the past fortnight, Bishdeo Sharma, petty saw-mill owner in Tothan, recessed deep in the Muzaffarpur countryside, sat idle beside his machines and cursed: his workers hadn’t returned from Dussehra leave, stuck in their villages for lack of public transport; most of it had been requisitioned for polling. And what timber he had, cut and sawn, he could not dispatch. Again the same reason: no transport. “Ab chunavi hulla-gulla khatam, kaam phir se chalu (Now the electoral cacophony is over, work can resume). His mill’s beginning to buzz, his only prayer is for power. “Things are terrible,” he complained, “most of the time we use a generator, but I am told things will get better, kuchh ho raha hai, something’s happening.”
Having spent a fair few hours on this meandering slip road between Hajipur and Muzaffarpur to reach Sharma’s — the temptation to halt was actually a tea shack that abuts the mill — there was little reason for us to ask or wonder what, what’s it that’s happening? It had been, for the most part, a “something’s happening” ride.
To begin with there was the road itself, proof of “something’s happening” constantly unspooling ahead like a ribbon-strip. You wouldn’t have dared too long a ride on this one a few years ago unless you were a practicing masochist, or then, like the inhabitants of its flanks, had no choice. There didn’t exist a road to speak of; you approached it by car and it beggared your belief, it felt like being shoved about at the back of a tractor. Progress was slow and tortuous. This morning, we cruised, our belief again beggared by the smoothness of the blacktop. Something’s happening.
Our first stop was a sight we couldn’t have passed over. It was an arresting moment, we had to surrender to it. A school of freshly painted brickwork. Girls, all neatly uniformed, cavorting in the corridors or chanting lessons aloud in their classes. A couple of workers sweeping the courtyard of the remains of a mid-day meal served well ahead of mid-day. “Lots of students to go through,” a man who later introduced himself as “Myself Dilip Singh Class VI Master” offered apologetically. “We start a little early with the lower classes.”
As the first rows wound up their meal of rice, dal and curried cauliflower — they were coming off vats still being worked on earthen ovens at the back of the school — another group of children took position. Happens daily? “Happens daily, Sir,” Master Dilip Singh replied with the earnestness of one of the brighter ones in class, “Everyday, daily, for a few years, since this government, Sir, sometimes we also have meals here only. Leftover, leftover, I mean to say what is left, sometimes, Sir. It is good for us also, I mean to say good for us to eat also, Sir.”
Girls attending school in uniform. Girls getting a meal. Girls return home on bicycles given by the state, in long single-files along the roadside, like blue lace unfurling. Something’s happening. Teachers attending school, taking class. Teachers supping with students in a swept school yard. Teachers herding children around like they were their own loved ones, almost like they do in the movies. Simi (though, with due apologies to her and to Master Dilip Singh, there isn’t a likeness of looks) in Mera Naam Joker. The happy din almost rings with the same merry note as Mistress Simi’s picnic romp with her schoolkids — “teetar ke do aage teetar, teetar ke do peechhe teetar, bolo kitne teetar…” Something’s happening.
A kind of revolution, Sulekha Kumar, calls it, keep watching — “ek tarah ki kranti ho rahi hai, dekhte rahiye”. She often minds her husband’s cloth-store in Astipur bazaar, a little trundle down from the school, while he goes home for lunch.
“I never had this chance as a child, else I would not be here, but my daughter goes and on a cycle too. I hope she does not have to sit in a shop front.” No pressure on her to get married as soon as she’s done with school or even before? “Kyon?” Sulekha retorts, almost offended. “Why? She’s in high school and I can see she has a mind of her own, I don’t think she’ll allow that even if we wanted. She wants to go to Patna University.” Something’s happening.
The country is slowly getting burnished to gold with the paddy stalks ripening. The afternoon sun’s hard and the road continues to surprise. It’s so thickly topped, the tar is mulching under the tyres as we speed along, weaving and winding through hamlets that have begun to look like little towns — mobike showrooms, mini theatres, private hospitals, even what someone had decided to call a “Minni Mall And Arcade”. It was no more than row of shutter-down shops under that single aspirational banner. The prominent, and memorable, in the set of garish signage was a “phesan gelri” called Cat Moss.
Something’s happening.
