ME n MY BIHARI FRIENDS

“Do not mix with bihari people, stay aloof”, instructions like this and several others in the same line was hammered into my ears about four years ago. Ever since I got lucky and got into a good engineering college in Jharkhand (erstwhile Bihar) ever acquaintance of mine did not hesitate from giving me the very same advice over and over again.

“Which engineering college did you get into?” would be the question, barely would I have finished my reply then spat comes the statement of shock “Its in Bihar !, be careful”. “It is actually in Jharkhand” was my automated answer to this common misapprehension.

As the days rolled by, this common opinion did affect me. Unaware of what life had installed for me I started my journey, little did I know how wrong common perceptions are.

In the beginning I stayed aloof but then it happened. May be it was destiny but from friendly smiles in the hostel lobby to introductions which involved using ‘nics’ and wit rather than your place of origin, from meaningless gossip which involved numerous people squeezed into one 10 X 10 room (God only knows how!) to fights in the cricket field over umpiring decisions, things just started to happen. One thing lead to another and there I was with my new formed gang of friends. Although it took me some time to notice but almost all my friends were biharis. Ironically the only other ethnicity I was friends with was Bengali, arguably the second most dreaded ethnicity of the country.

So there I was a misfit by text book definitions. But life is not about not following stereotypes; it is about creating your own rules. So I jumped the bridge, free from all social reserves and end result was true friendship.

Don’t get me wrong. This has not been a fairytale affair. There have been the usual ups and downs. There have been times when I felt that it would have been best if I never came here and never meet the people I met, there have been arguments, criticism, leg pulling, embarrassment, abuses, cynicism and all other negative emotions possible in all possible quantities. But then there have also been some really good times, numerous night outs, birthday bashes, placement treats, simple casual banters on the mess table or serious discussion about life in general, all of which leave you with the notion that you have friends you can depend on. Irrespective of what happened I know this much that what ever happened, the positives as well as the negatives, was because of my doing, my karma. It was a culmination of the person I am and the persons I am a part of and ethnicity had very little to do with it.

If I was given the ability to reverse the arms of clock and change time I will give it a pass. I am what I am. The things that have happened have made be different, for better or worse only time will tell, but I willing to take that chance. I have installed a few qualities within myself which I shall cherish forever, and I would have never learned them if it was not for the company I have. A few things are for sure, no one can indulge like a bihari can, no one can abuse like a bihari can, no one can care like a bihari can. So here I am proudly proclaiming that life would have been less eventful if it was not for my biharis friends.

May be I got lucky. It might be that the best of people who just happen to be biharis became associated with me. That may be true but I think it is fare that this ethnicity is given a fair chance to present their case before declaring the verdict.

In this “Raj” ,where blood is drawn based on whether you are a bhaiyaji or if your ends with a kar it is very much essential that we practice tolerance and do not allow stereotypes to affect our judgments. It is a matter of individual perception.

And you might just get lucky like me and discover great friends and be left with a life time of sweet memory about people called “biharis”.