I too am from Patna, in fact the very road where Amitava’s parent’s live, and learnt to ride bicycle on the same road or Path as it is called in Hindi & went to the Children’s park for cricket. I too left Patna quite early, just after my ISc (12th) in 1982 and keep going back. Then too guys who left Patna earlier than me lamented what Patna had become and talked of the Patna St X or Patna College or the Science College or PMCH of their days. I wonder what is it that makes it own children view Patna in this way? Why does Floridian, in his otherwise brilliant post, says “Ultimately cities like Patna are about one’s past.”

Fact is, notwithstanding all the dire words about the failing Patna, there were 86 IIT JEE in ISc batch of Patna Univ of ’82, quite an achievement. The Civil services topper and several other fairly successful professionals came from my school batch, in spite of the lament of the seniors for the failing standards during my first alumni meet. History repeats itself, with now my batch-mates lamenting the falling standards of Patna even while Super 30 and others produce brilliant youngsters ready to take their place in society.

No Patna is not about history, but about future. As the capital of the most youthful state in India, it is all about future. Its youth has already shown what they can achieve outside Bihar. Time is ripe when they do the same for their home. Its Anta ghat still sells the most organic of vegetables, as it has sold for centuries, vegetables grown in the Gangetic islands or Diyaras without any fertilizers or even manures, transported by boats. With Jharkhand gone, it has the best chance to be the greenest state in India and indeed the world. The aroma of Jhangri or green gram is still the best there. It is only in Patna that you can get the crispy Samosa, made with just potatoes and a hint of masala (not the over spicy Greenpark, Delhi type) or the parval ka mithai. Michael Wood, in his well regarded TV serial The Story of India calls it a most remarkable city, like Rome and Egypt rolled into one – a religious, political and cultural centre – once the greatest city in the world. Pratham, the well respected education NGO, has several papers saying how the kids here absorb faster than elsewhere. Notwithstanding all the dire predictions, the genes of the Nalanda of yore are still alive and kicking.

Personally speaking, I welcome stories about Patna (or Springfield, America) and New York (or Maximum City) but only when places (or people) from the latter list are not set up (inadvertently or deliberately) as better and more special than thousand invisible others from the former list.

When that happens, I get mad at the systematic, collective reasons that make vibrant people from distant, less-powerful regions invisible to the few with seductive voices and writing styles.

Thanks for this Amitava – this post was well-written, and resonates for many reasons, one of which is that it reminds me so much of A Suitable Boy’s Brahmpur. Looking forward to your future posts.

I had no idea there had been a ‘ten million dead’ famine in the 1780s. However I searched around, and this (by the looks of it, well-sourced) Wikipedia entry claims more than 30 million people died during 3 major famines during 1770-90, about ten million each time. And the total population of India in 1800 is placed below 200 million (though all figures for this year are estimates and vary quite a bit). Thus, these famines wiped out more than 15% or nearly one-sixth of all Indians at the time, if the figures are to be believed.

In searching, I also found this nice picture of the Gol Ghar granary, and the Google GeoEye picture clearly shows the spiral staircase you mention. I wonder what the fatal flaw in the granary doors was.

Yes, yes, yes! I would even settle for a few pages if you don’t have the time for a book, Amitava.

My random thoughts on Patna, a city I left exactly 38 years ago but a city that has never left me.

1. Patna is real India because regardless of the all those cell phones and multiplexes, 90% of India still lives in Tier 2, 3,…cities and villages. If Patna now boasts a few pool halls, the patrons are probably less than .001% of the population. Similarly, only a few hundred men – ladies not invited – play golf at Patna’s only golf course, a charming relic of the Raj and the only course in the world where you can tee off with the roar of lions and trumpeting of elephants in the background. The course abuts the Patna zoo, which in my opinion is one of the best sights of Patna if you admire a genuine botanical garden, early morning walks with piped in classical music from loudspeakers welcoming you to the zoo, power mad ministers on morning walks with their entourage and sub-machine gun toting bodyguards, a beautiful lake with boats for rent, eating Indian style chow mein at the zoo cafeteria, watching lovers whisper sweet nothings – this is not Delhi, yaar – and yes, lots of animals.

2. Patna does have a disproportionately high concentration of jewelry stores and medical practices, both businesses heavily patronized by the tens and thousands of affluent rural and small-town people who pour into Patna daily to buy the best medical treatment from FRCS and MRCP doctors or to invest in gold jewelry and obscenely expensive saris, which in India rank right behind real estate as one of the safest forms of investment. Leave the stock market to those Mumbai “seths” and IT yuppies.

3. All NRI hot-shots like Amitava and yours truly return to Patna quite often and not only because of our parents. There is something about hanging out with old “langotiya years” in one of Patna’s many dusty, fly infested “chai ka dukans” that beats the local Starbucks hands down. And let’s not forget all those old relatives and friends, who treat you like the prodigal son who could do no wrong even if you are the schmuck who got fired from your five-figure job in the US for screwing up the new product launch or still pronounce pizza like the Urdu word “fiza” even after having lived in the US for decades. In times of trouble, Patna is a lot cheaper and far more effective than therapy.

4. Ultimately cities like Patna are about one’s past, a past that becomes more relevant with every passing year. I will be 58 soon. It is not nostalgia talking. It is the entire force of one’s formative years that shapes most of one’s life. Yes, I have lived in other places twice as long as I lived in Patna, but deep down I am a still a Patania, not Patnaite as you called us you underscoring my_dog_jagat. But I forgive you.

5. The best place to play pool, or in my day snooker, in Patna is still Bankipore Club, still with the “pore” in its spelling and a drafty old relic from the Raj that was established just 8 years after the Sepoy Mutiny, dear SM readers. Though terribly frayed around the edges, the Club is still the gathering place for Patna’s powerful and rich, the rich always playing second fiddle to the powerful in this essentially government town. The privilege of buying the chief secretary or a high court judge a drink is still the dream of many wealthy businessmen at the Bankipore Club.

Thanks, Amitava, for the post. See you at the corner chai shop some day, the one that is right by the open field as you approach Patliputra Colony from the Boring Road side.