The spark which ignited this thought in me; almost dead for a while was initiated by a series of incidents during my previous tour to Kahalgaon and Munger. I wish to ask pardon if this blog tend to hurt someone's faith. I like to clarify that these are my personal thoughts I'm not commenting on any religion or community of people.
As prologue I will like to mention that during this season KANWARIYAS ( followers of lord Shiva) came to pay visit to deoghar popularly known as BABADHAM. The numbers of visitors is huge.
Its known to us that we are residents of a poor and developing country and no matter what the data suggests I still believe that infrastructure supporting to such huge population is mere. I don't wish to mitigate the govt's feel good factor. And to add further Bihar being one of the last if not the last among indian states.
My journey encompassed the traditional path followed by kanwariyas to reach to their destination. In the entire span of journey I found all railway stations trains etc covered with GERUA (orangish) colour. At places it seemed that they outnumbered local people. Here please consider the fact that population density of Bihar is 880 as per 2001 census.
The trains, stations and other infrastructure crumbled under such a enormous pressure. The amenities meant for local catered these TIRHTANS ( holy travellers) the trains meant to carry people to their work places, homes were captured by KANWARIYAS. Though you will get your seat if you had your reservation but the shouting and smoking ( ganja ) by them will not let you comfort yourself, also you might have to share your seat.
During my outgoing journey I thought of these Kanwariyas as problems for others but it soon vanished as during my return I found how much they physically suffered for this journey. Heels bleeding, legs tired, some even lost their assets like money jewelry etc. Still they willing to do this again next year..
I wondered why? Why we are like this? We blame government for not providing enough facilities, but never think of caring them. We blame others when they are not performing their duties, I don't think all the Kanwariyas are jobless. Suffering in Pilgrimages is described as Tapasya, and causing troubles to others.. How can one describe that..
We are counting on our population as human resource, are these our resources or burden on resources. Mr Kalam visioned of developed India was he counting on these. Every year villages need to invest in facility for the guests ( kanwariyas) the same fund when used judicially would have added to development of village.
I had described a situation here, I guess similar things happen during seasonal pilgrimages like visit to Amarnath, Makka Madina visit as HAJ etc etc...
I only wish to understand us. Please leave your valuable comments.
I apologize for the poor language... but hope I was successful in conveying my thoughts...