Bihar is to India what India is to the West!!!

“Another debacle,” Rexy said disappointingly and changed the news channel to one of her favorite K-word lachrymose program.
“What happened?” Did Tulsi die finally?” I asked. I am very optimist but Ekta Kapoor ditches me every time making her alive again and again.
“No, I am talking of these Biharis beaten up in Mumbai,” Rexy responded. “Why can’t this entire non-sense end up finally” She had agony in her voice.

“I don’t find anything wrong in this. Maharashtra belongs to Marathis, what in the heck Biharis were doing there,” I counted-reacted impromptu.

You shouldn’t take the chance of arguing with girls, but as I mistakenly did so, now it was going to be really big. Rexy won’t let me go so easily.

“What’s wrong in this, did you say?” she shouted furiously. Eyes red, hairs open (she had opened her hair band when poor I opposed her) and face frowned.

“Poor unemployed empty handed chaps beaten up savagely and you are saying what’s wrong in this. Are you crazy or what” Rexy shouted. It was going to be really big now.

“They have got their own state, why can’t they just stay within their own boundaries? Why they are moving to Punjab, to Maharashtra, to Bangalore in not only dozens or hundreds but in hundreds of thousands?” I said softly. I don’t dare shout in front of her, so I kept myself soft.

“This is India Mister. This Maharashtra doesn’t belong to Marathis only. This Punjab doesn’t belong to Punjabis only. This Bangalore doesn’t belong only to Kannadigas” Rexy was very angry now. She even had got her cheeks vibrating with anger now. Only thing left was a smooth slap on my face and thus end of the show, but she chose to continue.

“And what boundaries you are talking about? Biharis staying in Bihar doesn’t mean they won’t go out of it. Bihar is after all India only,” she was soft this time while saying this.

“No, they are coming to Maharashtra and grabbing otherwise Marathi employment. They are coming to Punjab and seizing otherwise Punjabi farmers’ employment. They are even moving to all other prosperous parts of India and are taking hold of employment of local people. Why in the hell can’t they just stay happy in their own land, with their own people, within their own boundaries,” I was happy because I thought that I defeated her with this argument this time.

“After all, we local people suffer due to these Biharis” I thought.

“Ravi, what’s your dream business school?” Rexy asked.

“What?” I wondered.

We are discussing Bihar and Rest of India, and this Rexy girl is all of a sudden asking me about my dream school.

“Haha,” I thought but didn’t laugh loud.
“She has conceded defeat, so wants to change the topic” I thought.
“Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg, Insead, Oxford, Cambridge,” I uttered all the top business schools all in one breath.

“Oh really!!!” came the first reaction
“Yeah baby,” I tried to make that rocky rock star pose but felt myself a joker, so came back to normal human posture.

“And Mr. Ravi, where in the world all those schools are,” Rexy asked.

“She herself belongs to Canada, then why is she asking all those bizarre questions?” I wondered.

“US, UK, France,” I crowed.

“Here you go,” she said energetically.

“Hmm. Biharis shouldn’t come to Mumbai or to Bangalore or to Punjab. They should also stay within their own limits, their own boundaries. They shouldn’t even try to grab opportunities and jobs of local people. Right?” she asked me.

She was repeating the same lines that I had said a few minutes ago. What’s she up to? These girls, no one has ever understood them, nor will one ever succeed!!!

Everyone from our grand grand fathers to our grand fathers to our grand children to our grand grand children have and will ever falter on this front!!!


“Right,” I said and widened my chest. After all, I had defeated a girl in an argument. At least, I thought so.

“Then why should Americans or French or British should let you in their country? You can’t let people of same country live in other state, then why should people of an altogether different country let you come there and accommodate you,” Rexy shouted.

Man, she had a point here, the point that I never pondered, the fact that I never noticed.

“You work with an IT company and so do I. But why should American companies give you work? Why should their work be outsourced to India? Tell me,” she questioned.

“You become a braggart and tell even remotest of your friends that you are going to States. Your parents boast to your relatives that their son or daughter stays in the States. Am I correct?” she again questioned. Her voice was very serious and she was nothing but honest at the moment.

“Ravi, you know why you got this job?” she asked straight forward.

“Because US companies want to do cost cutting, and we are skilled but cheap labor.” Well I confessed.

“Why shouldn’t every Indian IT engineer be beaten up when he goes to the States or the Britain?” she questioned and now I had no answer to any of her question anymore.

“Now you will say that we are skilled and give consultation to the States, but what these Biharis do, right?” Rexy was a visionary, a philosopher, an original thinker now.

I simply nodded in yes.

“Ravi, you surely are skilled and are a wonderful consultant. But you were privileged that your parents could afford to make you that skilled. Many Biharis may not be that skilled in technology, but they are skilled in construction and they get employment in this outside Bihar, that’s why they come to your places,” she clarified.

“All the buildings, the infrastructure, the flyovers you see, these hardworking people have made it. But really they won’t want to do so conditional they have the privilege to learn technology.” I was wondering at Rexy’s scrutiny.

Rexy finished this argument. Well, this was no more an argument because once Rexy started revealing facts, I was no more an arguer, but only a mute listener.

Rexy is again busy watching her lachrymose K-serials, but has left me contemplating.

What we Indians are? Isn’t Bihar to India what India is to the West??

Don’t Indians go abroad for labor? Don’t Indians go abroad as cheap skilled labor in IT? Don’t Indians go abroad for education or for employment??

We do go!! And here we Indians are people of those prosperous Bangalore or Punjab or Delhi or Mumbai et al.

If we want to go for better opportunities, then why can’t people of less prosperous states of India come for employment to other states, to the states where they don’t need even Visa to come??

Do they really grab our opportunities? If yes, then don’t we grab opportunities of Americans or the French or the British? If there we have no issues, then why here? Why this volte-face?? Why these self-determined dual standards?

India is a democracy, and every Indian has the blunt right to live or work anywhere in India. We don’t need any advocates of regionalism. If we really need, then first call all your near and dear ones from the West, where they are grabbing opportunities of hundreds of thousands others. Till then, be Indians, not regional!!!

It’s 11 at night when I am finishing this post. Rexy has given me yet another insight. I feel myself a bit more Indian today than a Punjabi. Today, when I see people of Bihar in my state, I don’t look at them with hatred, but pass a smile, a smile that takes their sorrows of being away from their families away!!!