By Manuwant Choudhary
The other day I went to Patna's Bankipore Club and guess what even the pavement dwellers outside, whom the Bihar government have not been able to evict in 60 years, have left.
A few still remain on the pavement and I saw policemen in their khakhis poking them with their dandas...hoping to find some booze hidden under the plastic sheets.
Inside the club, it was completely deserted.
The Bankipore Club built by the British is located bang on the Ganga and is one of the few places in Bihar which had a semblance of life.
Nitish Kumar has killed all social life in Bihar.
Earlier if you called for a waiter you would have to wait for a while as they were so busy taking orders.
Now there are more waiters than guests.
You call one and dozens will come to you.
But with no drinks now, all you can order is some Bhindi pakora.
On its giant open cinema they were showing some black & white film...but even that was hard to watch as the District Magistrate placed glaring vapour lights towards the Club lawns to catch drinkers.
The alcohol adverts have been barbarically removed, some still in tatters !
Nitish is building a Ganga drive right in front..so the Club has lost its USP.
And now no drinks !
Why would anyone want to be a member here?
The Bars are empty, the food stalls are also losing business....and there is a stench coming from the Ganga...(no Ganga tax yet)
Patna is hardly a city, not even a decent town.
Once we heard they've opened a disco so we sent our camera team only to find out the disco operates only during morning hours like from 10 am to 12 noon !
Patna's only disco shut down in 15 days !
And there is no place for the young to hang out.
Couples for some solace travel to Kumhrar, the ancient site of Patliputra, which now has just a few remnants and a garden.
It used to have the site where 80 pillars from the court of Chandragupta Maurya could be seen.
I took some guests there to show them this and when I got there they had covered it all up with mud.
At Kumhrar they keep breaking down new boundary walls to build newer walls - corruption.
As we left the Club it felt like someone had died.
The next film to be shown there - Saala Khadoos !
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