The following is an account of the travel from Bihar to Karala with my father in late 1999.
The travel was in two spells one upto Balasore on day 2 and the second after 17 days. The election time was nearing in Bihar and therefore we had to take the car out of Bihar before that since in Bihar the private cars could be hired by the district administration for election duty. The rule is prevalent in the whole country I believe but in Bihar it turns out to be a confiscation with no room for explantion.
Day 1: The Bihar stretch
We started from the refinery township at BEGUSARAI at 05.05 and reached BHAKTIARPUR at 07.00. Further at the turning to RAJGIR at 07.45 where we diverted towards the south away from the Rajgir hills and reached NAWADA at 08.35, KODARMA at 10.15, the lake area in Kodarma at 11.00, BARHI at 11.10 HAZARIBAG at 12.15, RAMGARH at 13.45 and very close to Ranchi at 14.40. Here there was some sort of an accident and rue to the style of the place the villagers blocked the road until 18.20 till which time we had to wait with an occassional tea from a nearby dhaba.and reached RANCHI Ursuline convent at 19.15.
The total kms for the day was 364.
My second cousin Sr. Goretti was already informed of our arrival and she provided us the best of accoommodation built by the German nuns around the middle of the century. The day was memorable for the beautiful landscape around KODARMA with the lake and the terrain was sort of hilly. My car was away from the plains for the fisrt time and it seemed like the car was asking me why did you not take me out early with itsfine response to the terrain.
Day 2: Bihar continued
Started at 07.30 and reached JAMSHEDPUR 10.40, GHATSILA at 11.45, BAHARAGORA on the border with ORISSA at 12.35 and BALASORE in Orissa at 14.45. We were received by the Bishop of Balasore a nephew of my father by relation but almost the same age as him. Here we parked the car and went back to Begusarai. The total kms covered was 684.
About 15 kms before BAHARAGORA an Inspector of the POLICE hailed us and thinking that the same was for some checking, we stopped instinctively. He wanted to be taken in the car upto the border with Orissa ie. BAHARAGORA and we obliged. Since my father was on the front passenger seat and he could not sit on the rear seat with his handicapped leg the inspector was offered the back seat half of which was full of our luggage. He was not quite happy with it however, from his demeanour. We started having apprehensions; What if he is not a cop really, may be a dacoit in cops clothes to rob us? But we had no option but to stop because if he was really a cop we would be booked for not stopping!
My Hindi was somewhat suited to the Bihar type because of my association over six years in Bihar. But father's Hindi was incorrigible for the cop and he expressed 'aapka bhasha meim samach nahi pa raha hai'. (I am not able to comprehend what you are saying).
My father had almost prided in his ignorance of Hindi despite 15 years in the Air Force since he prided in being with the Air Force and not the inferior Army. Such audacity from the cop, of sitting in our car and criticising our accent had to be swallowed in such a situation. By BAHARAGORA he thanked us and gave us directions to our journey and left us.
On the way back to Barauni, we first boraded a train upto Jamshedpur which was very fast and then from thre to Barauni in a ight train. almost by daybreak around five in teh morning there was a shrill shriek from a woman and all of us in the bogie woke up. Almost immediately I saw a pair of hands outside the train hanging by the windows moving away still hanging. I could only see the hands grabbing the window rails moving adept and fast.
The woman recounted that she was being robbed and then a sardarji from the other end told us how he kikked the hands on the window rails until he fell off. I am sure at such speed and such terrain the robber could have barely survived. We did not sleep the rest of the night.
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