A gentle pat, na, on Bihar’s back?

You only have to be around genteel literaryinclined Biharis to sense the undying love they universally share for Basu Bhattacharyarsquos black amp white film Teesri Kasam 1966Itrsquos the first and only time they believe Biharis felt artistically seen in mainstream Hindi cinema Teesri Kasam is of course a gentle romance between a nautch girl Waheeda Rehman and a bholabhala bullockcart driver Raj Kapoor set around Purnea ArariaA classic enduring musical suffused with folk and modern songs the film was produced by the famed lyricist Shailendramdashstory and dialogues by the great litterateur Phanishwar Nath Renu based on his rural novella Mare Gaye GulfamDuring sessions at the Bihar Samvadi literature festival Irsquom at in Patna Renu feels too visibly alive and around The way Tagore or Ray have in Bengalmdashdecades after their deathsTeesri Kasam is to be contrasted with the popular vision of Bihar captured since in filmsseriesmdashfrom Shool Gangaajal to Gangs to Wasseypur Maharani to Khakeemdashcentred on dreaded buffoons for politicians and gangsters or bothThey certainly reflect one side of Bihar between the 1990s and midnoughties in particular when the statersquos image from afar trampled young Biharis into severe underconfidence They hesitated over even owning their regional identity in publicRenu remains relevant beyond nostalgia because his writings are deeply cinematicvisual That said as Prashant Kashyap moderator at the litfest in Patna tells us 60 per cent of currently published Hindi literature is authored by BiharisSurely they engage in broader more intimatehumanistic themes In the performing artsmdashsurely so does the pumping theatre scene of Patna which I pleasantly discover hanging out with my local actorfriend Ramesh SinghHe takes me to a relatively plush stage House of Variety ldquoPatnarsquos Prithvirdquo above Regent Cinema We doze off a lirsquol catching rehearsal of their forthcoming play Kamala SurayyaOn our way wersquod passed by the massive Kalidas Rangalayamdashshut down for renovation hopefullymdashwhere actor Pankaj Tripathi earned his early stagecred Premchand Rangashala has replaced the venue sinceldquoWe have a large artistic community easily 500plus regularly performing on stage meeting over addaschai at the Arts Collegerdquo Ramesh 50plus tells meDecades ago he used to do theatre with Pankaj Ramesh moved to Mumbai once around 2006 only to returnmdashrealising the magic of the metropolis didnrsquot match its reality or realty as it wereAs we speak Patnarsquos municipal corporation only such in the country is setting up a fullfledged drama school along the lines of NSDWhat if I told you that by far the finest museum to come up in independent India is in Patna since 2015 Yoursquod be as surprised as when a multiplexchain exec in Mumbai told me the biggest fanbase for Japanese anime in the country is in PatnaThe new Bihar Museum BM is near the old Patna Museum around since 1917mdasha tunnel will soon connect the two This befits Patna that was Pataliputra among the worldrsquos greatest capitals in history around 2300 years ago when mathematician Aryabhatt Kama Sutrarsquos Vatsayan Arthashastrarsquos Chanakya once residedBut even the multimedia and modernart spaces of the swanky BM equal Manhattanrsquos MoMA no lessmdashand I donrsquot conciliatorily mean it in the way of the puny pointless Museum of Art amp Photography MAP in Bengaluru BMrsquos packed when I visit it over the weekend As is the Ganga Path for the 20km riverfront Patnarsquos Marine Drive five and half times the size of Mumbairsquosmdashas mildmannered Patnaites including younglings on dates chill over lsquotandoori chairsquo lsquochicken littisrsquo inevitably shooting Insta ReelsThe buzzing Champaran Meat Shop best roadside eatery in town is full of men Gender ratios are fairest at countless tony cafes across the city Irsquom toldThis is dramatically different from the concept of ldquoautodatingrdquo for lsquospeeddatingrsquo that Patna girls had introduced me to when I was writing about the city in 2010 Wherein highschoolcollege couples entered sharedautorickshaws to keep circling around Patnamdashknowing that nobody will figure theyrsquore out on a dateThere is though a staid subtext to Patna It is a cent per cent sarkari city Power as in politics press bureaucracy alone define accessprominence Even money seems secondaryThis is probably true for most state capitals Bihar seems significantly more feudal still Even as it remains among the fastest growing states in terms of GDP itrsquos third in India The accounting base is too lowThe best homes and offices belong to the government Including the tallest ie the 18storey Biscomaun Bhawan From the revolving restaurant at the top floor of whichI soak in a birdrsquos eye view of a beautifully litup big citymdashchiefly impressed by Berlinrsquos Brandenburg Gatelike Sabhyata Dwar opening into a vast park convention centresAn arterial sevenkilometre flyover stretch that was once a railway track paces through the cityrsquos heartNone of the above I knew to exist when I did a pitstop in Patna in 2019 deeming it to be a ldquodumprdquo in my head Five years unless yoursquore an infant is not too longWhy am I telling you all this Because until I visited Patna nobody had told me any of it either Nope not asking anybody to move theremdashenough people alreadyMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper