Dear Sirs, Did you ever notice if jokes are personified in Bihari Style then it become more revenue generating than any other Indian dialects. Bihari the word in itself has been popular in day to day for many reasons, some good and some bad but, basically for making issues funny and too sensitive such as Bihari Type of Mob Lynching. Most of times, Indian media has misused this word intentionally for easy and cheap publicity of its products. As for example look on this funny dialogue from one of the latest Bollywood movie – Aaj ki Taza Khabar – Rabadi Devi bani Pradhan Mantri, Rajasthan me Barf Giri, Kashmir me Sukha Pada!! Rabadi Devi (wife of Laloo) had elected as the first woman chief minister of Bihar State and amazingly, she ruled the state of Bihar without holding any formal education. The main reason behind it is that – Bihar/Biharis has been caught with typical kind of politics, that itself stop to nurture it’s so called good image in media. Also, being a populas State with comparatively no infrastructure than other states of India, it has been facing an extremely high rate of migration of its working class population either its skilled or unskilled. Thanks and Regards, Sudesh Kumar 'Make Bihar smile again' November 29, 2005: Thousands of miles away from Patna, in La Tasca a Spanish restaurant in Norwich, UK, I found myself explaining to a fellow doctor from Germany, what all this means, after everybody started teasing one of our colleagues from Bihar. His response was very humble one. He said he comes from a state, which is poor, people are hardworking and have to go to places to earn the livelihood. In the process they compromise a lot and that's why people make fun of being a Bihari. I think we had Sangria, Takilla shots and a pint of beer each by then, but yes we were discussing the problems, which demanded high intellect input and for the moment we forgot we were all paediatricians having a night out as one of friends was leaving. Though ironically she didn't make it to the party but we carried on and decided let’s get our bureaucratic hats on, put things in perspective and think how we would have made difference to Bihar. So where do we begin? We presumed, as have read in the newspapers, everything is in mess. No infrastructure, no functioning government machinery, non existent public services, 40 per cent of population living below poverty, highest Infant mortality rate, high crime rate, rampant corruption, unemployment, you name the indicator of bad governance and jungle raj and Bihar will be projected high on the graph. So what do we have at our hand? "We have a very sick child Rajiv", said one of my colleagues, whose father is from Patna. But she was born and brought up in Trinidad and Tobago and from what ever little she can recollect from her once-upon-a-time visit, she will never want to go back again. So, how do we deal with this sick child? How do we make it better? What should be our approach? What should be our goals? And the answer to these questions, as we agreed, was we have to formulate an organised, methodical and pragmatic team approach, based on our training and evidence. Which then has to be religiously and professionally implemented. I think by now our pitcher of Sangria was finished and we moved to another Mexican bar and had another round of drinks. This time it was cocktails. A friend from Ranchi said that the cocktails tasted more like tadi. Then Iris, another colleague, said something, which we thought, was very significant and important if we have to make a flying and positive start. She commented that in Germany too, they have problems, problems, which are of different magnitude and which always, makes them think ‘yes they need to still work hard towards achieving the ideal society’. But they always believe in themselves and then democratically try to achieve them. And during this process they have to be fair and they have to be proud of themselves as an individuals as well as a German and make sure that the entire society benefits from development. I asked her what would she think of a person, who ruled this state for 15 years, made millions of dollars, and who believes that not development but caste matters, when it comes to winning elections. "I think this man is communal, he is preaching hatred Rajiv, if we have to solve this problem of the ‘sick child’, we have to make sure this man is banned from the hospital and brought to justice." So we have made a good beginning in Bihar, a positive one. We have democratically thrown out a person, who indirectly held millions of people hostage to crime, illiteracy, poverty, communalism, diseases, and corruption. We have laid faith in somebody, who has promised to deliver and act for the upliftment of every single Bihari - both economically and socially. We have to be proud that we have made decision in Bihar for a better tomorrow for ourselves and for our children and the generations to come. Now onwards, we have to work in tandem with government, with an aim to just improve. However small the step, it must be taken. No obstruction should deter us. Every single soul has to contribute and we have to take pride in it. We have to see our sick child smile, smile to make us believe that yes it was hard work but it was worth. Well by now the cocktails were finished and so was the food. We were a bit tipsy and had to get taxi back home. It was a 20 minutes drive and the taxi driver asked Prerna, another colleague, “where are u from?” “I am from Bihar, a state in India. The land blessed enormously with natural resources, a land where Gandhijis non-violent experiment shook the British empire, a land where Buddha laid the foundation of Budhism…”, though Prerna did not even have a sip of alcohol, we began to have doubts! Well what will be the new face of Bihar? The wand is in Nitish Kumar’s hand now and he has to decide whether he will fulfil the long lost dreams of Biharis or just become another Laloo with a slight saffron tinge! Expressindia.com invites its readers to send in their views, in not less than 200 words on the topic of Fixing Bihar, to [EMAIL PROTECTED] URL: http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=59134
