Bridging the gap, from Bihar to Punjab

“Hamare mulk mein aisa nahi hota (In our country, things are done differently),” said our Bihari gardener. And it took me a while to digest this new-found information that he considered Bihar a separate country and not a part of India. I laughed at his insouciance and his naivety and explained that Bihar is just a state and very much a part of India.

But then it was just a part of his lingo and nothing anti-national about it. Visarat had been working as a part-time gardener and caretaker of our home since long. He is not the only one working in an alien city for there are his nephews and nieces and a whole clan that has been transported from one state to another.

All the way coming from Bihar, separated from their families for months, they are comfortable with the language and the culture and have morphed and assimilated themselves so well that they are no longer culturally different but a part of us.

Visarat is a practising Muslim and on Eid he would put on starched and ironed crisp white kurta pyjamas. The festive spirit shines on his face and on those days his stride would be long and languorous. He would take a day off and spend the day with his buddies, celebrating and relegating the good old days when they were all together.

Lack of job opportunities make them travel back and forth. Some days nostalgia is writ large on Visarat’s face. Long talks with his family in his Bihari dialect, of which I’m not able to make out a word, amuse me and fill me with remorse at the same time. There is a wife who waits for months for him to be back, a daughter who has to be married, an ailing son who has to be taken care of. Perhaps, these are all the reasons he chooses to stay for and earn his bread and butter here where he is economically strong and continues to help his family in the best possible way he can.

He is part of the family but he can discern the discrimination his like continue to earn. Some days he calls himself “Bhaiyya log”, a humour bordering on self deprecation that is evident in his voice after being in Punjab for so long. When I asked him the reason for his anguish, he smiled and said that this is what people call them.

Some days, I feel he continues to be in state of strife, being among people who choose to make him feel inferior by relegating him to the lowliest of tasks and yet he benignly smiles and carries on for the hope of a better future that is at stake for him and thousands like him in this state. It’s a place where people like him travel every day in the desolate hope of making more money and supporting their families back home.

I remember once in university when a guy chose to make a crass remark against a batchmate who was a Bihari, describing him as an outsider. That guy, I learnt recently, is himself struggling to get US citizenship. Sometimes, it’s easy to draw boundaries but difficult to get a gist of things in a larger narrative. Meanwhile, Visarat continues to hope that life is good and he keeps trudging from Bihar to Punjab. The paths have to be traversed and he keeps on moving.

SEPARATED FROM THEIR FAMILIES FOR MONTHS, THEY ARE COMFORTABLE WITH THE LANGUAGE AND THE CULTURE AND HAVE MORPHED AND ASSIMILATED THEMSELVES WELL