Day trip to Patna

I did a day trip to Patna which was also my maiden trip to this historical city. The little that I saw of the city from the airport to the Sardar Patel Bhavan looked very much like Ranchi and Rourkela. Somehow, the poverty was also starkly evident – rundown buildings sharing space with incongruous flyovers, cycle rickshaws, pedestrians frantically trying to cross over every stretch of the road and an overall decrepit vibe.

Luckily, my meeting was over by lunch and I managed to stop over at the swanky Bihar Museum and spend a couple of hours before catching the flight back. The museum was inaugurated in 2015 and is a marvel.  It traces the entire history of Bihar covering the Prehistoric period, Stone Age, Bronze Age, Chalcolithic Age, the Jain and Buddhist eras, the Mauryas, Sangas, Guptas, Kushans, Palas, Islamic dynasties and the British Raj. Each period had a well-curated display of artifacts. A few standout exhibits were the ones on Sher Shah Suri (who was a ‘Bihari’ and a great administrator who tragically died when his ordinance exploded. If not for this, Humayun would have continued in exile and that would have been it for the Mughals), Guru Hargobind (who was born in Patna) and the one on the Girmityas.

The Girmityas were Indian indentured labourers who were moved by Britain to work in its plantations across its colonies. More than a million Indians were transported over a century in inhuman conditions. These labourers, the bulk of whom came from Bihar, left a lasting influence on the colonies they landed in – the West Indies, Suriname, Fiji, Mauritius, Madagascar etc. Today, the most famous Girmitya-descendent is undoubtedly V. S. Naipaul. His ‘A House for Mr. Biswas’ captures a lot of this immigrant identity crisis and the angst of not belonging. Naipaul himself was known for his acerbic razor-sharp view of his ‘motherland’ India. His ’Enigma of Arrival’, describing his first foray out of Trinidad and his early days in America is one of the greatest pieces of literature that I’ve read. Was happy to see him commemorated in the museum today.

The museum was designed by the Pritzker-winner Fumihiko Maki who was also selected to expand the UN headquaters in Manhattan. Plans are also underway to connect the museum with the older Patna Museum with an underground tunnel more than a kilometer long, which will also be a curated experience. Interesting and innovative…

PS: The museum was hosting an International Congress of the Society of South Asian Archeology, and I was thrilled to spot one delegate sporting a Fedora hat. There were, however, no signs of a whip in his possession. 😊