The trip from patna to bodhgaya is easy. The train system in India is good. It is at times delayed.. and the seating maybe not particularly comfortable.. best have a rug or something in your hand luggage to adjust ones posture.. but trains are good.
Lonely planet guidebooks are very influential. one simply doesn’t heave loam without one.. (credit cards are good too.) the writer of the edition I have (an oldish one I got second hand and cheap) was not impressed with patna and gave it a bad rap. There are problems in bihar.. but the place is showing signs of improving .. for sure.. there is a socialist government and it is definitely has widespread popular support. ( the figurehead is a notorious persona called laloo or something who has been in trouble with the law on and off..)
It seems moreover that the two sides of politics are not taking extreme positions.. and one sees partisans of both sides doing things like talking on the train in a cordial enough atmosphere. Progress is happening. There is definitely an effort being made to move forward.
On a grimy shopfront on the main block there was a sign in shoking pink and white as I recall.. THE NEW INDIA. It said.. I don’t know what the store had been.. electricl goods or something.. it had moved or gone fut.. it had been there for a few years.. maybe 9 or 10..
But…
I went shopping in a deparnment store!! It was good value too.. busy and business was brisk.. there was variety and items of fairly good to good quality. ( I got some sweet lime pickels that are really good!!! In a buy one get one deal..) I did only see one ‘megamart’ .. and security was heavy.. but .. it is a sign of a new India.. I seems to me that the reason why progress here has been so tardy is largely the business ethics. Mistrust.. sectarianism.. non-willingness to do business openly.. .. one small kiosk after another all selling the same rubbish.. stale food. Junk food.. rubbish.. no quality anywhere… things are changing.( the security in the department store was there to a degree at least against action from the clique of miserable kiosk wallahs id say ) It might take a few more years for ‘consumerism’ to really take off.. but it is going to happen.. and it will totally and fundamentally change bihar.. amen.. thank Christ. Buddha Krishna and hanuman as well. Well I suppose its nothing new to anyone from Mumbai .. or such places.. but.. it is happening here right now.. It never entered my imagination that I would one day be standing in support of consumerism.. but there it is.
. I rememeber some time ago reading somewhere that India would never change.. it was a book by em forester or someone like that.. but whoever it was.. they were mistaken.. India is changing right now.
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