Although this is a back-dated post, I still wanted to write about what happened to me a few days ago in my sleepy little village (particularly sleepy given the heat wave which makes practically anything else too difficult). As the readers of this blog may be aware, I hail from a small village called Pandeypatti in the district of Buxar in Bihar. This village, as the name suggests, is the fiefdom of a particular caste (of the many that rule the Bihar landscape) and much of what happens here  is guided by the whims and fancies of the village superiors...or it used to be guided by the above. Recently, there has been a marked change in the way the proceedings are carried out and even I have been able to notice it over my last few small visits.

The Buxar town that is flanked by villages like Pandeypatti (that form the Buxar district) is an interesting study, too. With four cinema halls, one big market (big by the rural standards, that is), two mandis (make-shift markets that meet twice or thrice a week and act as a meeting point for sellers and buyers across the district), and one shady Government hospital, the place has got little to boast of apart from the historic battlefield where the famous Battle of Buxar was fought (and which has now been converted into the political playground).

Enough of background now! Let's cut down to what exactly prompted me to write all this. Actually, it was a combination of two incidents that happened one after the other, one in Buxar town and the other in my own village. Taking them in the chronological order, the first of these incidents happened when I was on a visit to the Doctor of Homeopathy who has impressed my mother and sister by his smart talk and some lucky medicine selection that seems to have worked for their repective ailments. My ailment, as per my much-impressed and much-concerned mother and sister, is my thinning mane which needs something to be done about it if there is any chance to marry me off (ok, the marriage part was my addition of the spice, but you get the point, don't you?).

So as I was explaining the encumberances of desired matrimony to this doctor, he suddenly pops up a question and I am taken aback a little, considering the passion with which I was tring to communicate all the worries of my mother and sister and the reciprocal passion with which the doctor put the question to me.

Doctor: Night fall hota hai? (Do you experience night fall?)
Me: Huh?
Doctor: Night fall (with the fall spelt as phaaaal, as if to make me understand)
Me: umm nahi, normally to nahi, kyun? (Well, no...not normally. Why?)
Doctor: Hast kriya (literally translated, Hand Work)?
Me: kya (What)???
Doctor: Hast Kriya karte hain? (Do you indulge in hand work?)
Me: Hast Kriya??? (Hand work...still trying to relate to the terminology)
Doctor: Dekhiye, humse sach bataane me koi problem nahi hai, aakhir hum aapke doctor hain (Listen, there is no problem in telling me the truth...after all, I am your doctor)
Me: Accha, wo! haan karta hoon regularly (Oh that! yeah I do that regularly...suddenly realizing that he is referring to masturbation)

Doctor raises his eyebrows at regularly and looks at me.
I change the word to normally and am eagerly waiting for him to ask me the frequency but unfortunately, the question never comes.

The next incident happened when I was coming back to my village after the emotional meeting (at least for the doctor...he did not speak much in the same tone after hearing regularly, despite my subsequent reversion to normally) with the doctor. As I was passing the last of the nukkads (the corner shops that sell tea, cakes, eggs and such), I overheard the conversation taking place between some four or five young boys (most of them in their late teens) sipping their last cup of tea before going back to their household chores of the evening.

Boy 1: kaa ho, tu gaeel rahla na saloonwa me? (so, you had gone to the saloon, hadn't you?)
Boy 2: haan, gaeel rehni par okra paas na rahe kauno design (yeah, I had but he did not have any design)
Boy 3: Frencho cut na rahal ha? (he didn't even have the french cut?)
Boy 4: are na rahela ekni ke sang ei sab, okra khaatir jaaye ke padi Patna (oh, these people don't have these things, for that you will have to go to Patna)
Boy 2: haan, aur ou phatal boot cut bhi na rahela yaar kapadwa ke dukaan me (yes, pal and even the torn boot cut is not there in the clothes' shop)
Boy 1: aajkal ihe sab achcha laagela lekin ei Buxarwa me saala kauno samjhewaala naikhe (nowadays, only these things look good but in this bloody Buxar, no one understands)

So, no one understands, and as the school drop outs and Lalu's baal charwahas (the sons of cow-grazers for whom Lalu had so famously opened the special schools all across Bihar) discuss boot cut jeans and french cut beards, the doctors in the city are still speaking of masturbation in hushed tones. Probably it makes sense, too and is not that much of a contrast for I wonder what the reply of these french cut and boot cut boys would have been, when asked about the frequency of their hast kriyas...all I can say is carry on, doctor! :-)