So, so far, and yet so Purnea!

The thing with new eateries that kill it with their Insta gamemdashoverspending on great deacutecormdashis once people have visited those places clicked the desired picturesvideos posted them online wreaking fomo on their friends they seldom returnThatrsquos how places shut down so quickly This is a fine insight on the FampB industry I get from Mohamed Tufail 25 and Imtiaz Kamar 25 Perhaps as true for Bombay as Purnea Bihar where Tufail runs a Chinese restaurant Chopsticks Kamar has a cafeacute and a bakery Lassi Ghar and ChashniWe meet at the lovely Nescafe coffeeshop by Roopbani cinema in Purnea Itrsquos been five years after Kamar Tufail and I have reconnected Irsquom on the road reporting on the 2024 general electionsSimilarly the first time we met was when I had likewise treated them to coffee during the general elections in 2019mdashhosting a group discussion with several such randomly picked firsttime voters from PurneaThe youngsters in 2019 and the Mayfair HotelTo prove that there was indeed a perceivable attitudinal shift among young middleclass Biharismdashearlier either associated with taking entrance tests seeking government jobs or looking to move to biggermetropolitan citiesTufail then had wished for a corporate career At 20 Kamar already owned an ecommerce site retailing cellphone accessories sourced from China that he says ldquowent the Snapdeal way itrsquos impossible for anyone to compete with AmazonrdquoThereafter he started a mithai shop that ran into a peculiar kinda issue Most of his Hindu clientele would buy mithai to present as prasad offering to Gods They werenrsquot particularly comfortable with picking it up from a Muslimrsquos store Kamar tells me this adding right away that he means ldquono disrespectrdquo FairSo five years later which is a fifth of their lifetime since they were 20 then whatrsquos changed about their professional life now Both Kamar and Tufail employ five to 10 people from Purnea in their respective businesses Kamar hopes to expand his popular bakery into a franchiseTheyrsquore not the only ones Right before stepping into the coffeeshop I got presented a fantastic Tshirt with the poster of my favourite film Satya handpainted by the young local artist Shanu Ray He refused to let me pay so Irsquove placed an order for another favourite The Namesake for a painted teeLocal entrepreneur Manish Ranjan sells Rayrsquos works on demand online under the label House of Maithili Ranjan used to be a fashion consultant with several TV channels production houses such as MTV UTV etc back in Bombay He moved to his hometown during COVID19 and stayed onWhich is spread over 35 acres in the districtWhich is a pretty common phenomenon I notice It doesnrsquot matter what you return for Bright Kunal Kumar with ldquovishesh lagaav for Bombayrdquo used to assist in movie productions in Versova before pandemic Politics is his loveinterest He assists local neta Pappu Yadav in Purnea as we speakAnd thatrsquos the most lucrative smalltown profession still Sway of the state has tragically deepened over years Absolute power continues to reside with politicians bureaucrats The local DM or SP especially in Bihar like the state CM and the PM is a temporary messiah Good ones get remembered as Gods foreverTo get anything done you ought to know someone who knows someone A barter is established Politeness is perceived as weakness Assertiveness gets admired You could feel lost otherwiseThatrsquos why elections feel like a makeorbreak moment for those with much to lose or gain Yoursquod rather have access to power in Purnea than simply be rich The latter works fine in a big cityHow many luxurious experiences can too much money buy you in a small town anyway I pay R200 for a Chinese lunch at the nearby Kishanganjrsquos poshest restaurant Hotel Daftari Palace Rs 250 for a tiny cup of coffee at Bagdogra Airport and R1200 for a pint of beer in KolkatarsquosSomeplace Else pretty much over the same dayA townrsquos low purchasing power bears immense benefits Folks flailing their asses over long commutes small homes with disposable incomes nearing zero despite how much they make will figure this out at some pointBut thatrsquos also gonna change as the demographic does Purnea is I guess a Tier III town The Mayfair Hotel I stay over at still reasonably priced with a swimming pool spa the works is spread over an eyepopping 35acre allgreen campus Nitesh Singh its owner also has a huge mall coming up elsewhere He used to work in the realestate in KeralaI didnrsquot ask him who his customers aremdashtherersquos nothing principally touristy about Purnea best known for litterateur Phanishwar Nath Renu who was anyway from the neighbouring Araria Whatrsquos he investing so heavily on then The future what else The small town is the future of the cityIrsquom also drawn to Purnea because one of my closest friends since school Vishek Chauhan moved there in 2009 after a successful corporate career to run his ancestral Roopbani cinemaHe refurbished the decrepit theatre installing AC plusher seats and threw its doors open with the latest Salman Khan release Wanted There was a line all the way down to a hundred metres for Salman then As now Okay Some things really donrsquot changeMayank 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