Kamalpur - Paradise Lost

It's taken me a couple of days to try and write about Kamalpur, my Dad's village. We decided to go visit his village, because I want to build a school there and it seemed to be a great location for Rural Self Reliance. The roads to Kamalpur were surprisingly well paved and smooth. All of us were expecting the opposite. My uncle and cousin joined us for the trip. We had estimated Kamalpur to be 70 km from Patna... it ended up being more like 170 km. I felt like we drove to the ends of Earth. The scenery got more rural and more beautiful by the kilometer. When the car finally stopped, I know I had never seen a more beautiful place in my life. This place had been untouched by time for centuries. The fields were the greenest green I had ever seen. The backdrop of the village was mountain scape that I remember from my Dad's stories. The entire place was covered with palm trees. This place looked like God's paradise. Even Vineeta was wondering where we were? The village was a whole other story...

Villages in India are efficient, and they recycle everything... they are usually clean. The air quality is better, people keep their respective areas pretty tidy. The first thing I noticed about Kamalpur was how unclean it was. There seemed to be no "order" in the village. Walking through, the people looked haunted... Everyone followed us to my Dad's house. I remember this from my childhood. You're immediately famous for being "foreign." Our house was so small. When I was 10 this house was so big to me; we would run around hiding in the rooms. I looked at the sitting area of the house, it was no bigger than 10 ft X 10 ft... tiny! Half the village crowded in to this small space to see me. 

I was meeting with my family members, while Vineeta was talking to potential students, and Vineeta's father was looking for champions. There was something about the people in this village. It seemed almost as though they had suffered an extreme tragedy. I couldn't put my finger on it. Everyone looked as if the life had been sucked out of them.

I felt a very strong urge to run... I think half the village felt the same as well. Get out of this paradise. We knew that this area of Bihar was infested with Naxalites (a localized form of terrorism), so we had goals to get out of there before nightfall. I only sat and visited for about an hour, but it felt like days before I got up to leave. 

How could some place so beautiful have such an aura of sadness... we escaped about an hour later... the drive back to Patna was silent. All of us were taken aback by the depression of the village...