Kushinigar to Bodhgaya
I bet that hell is really a busride from Kushinigar to Bodhgaya.
The itinerary has the day blocked off for the adventure, a 12 hour bus ride. We get ready to board and gird ourselves for the long journey. The bus is spacious, the driving tem familiar.
We are traveling through the Indian state of Bihar. It’s the third largest state and widely known as the home of Buddhism. It’s extremely ironic that this cradle of pacifism is currently a rough place.
The population is 85% rural and 60% under twenty five. There is an explosion rumbling through the culture here. You can’t tell the difference between the encroachment of western style marketing and values and the enormous surplus of young people.
It’s the baby boom on steroids. 60% is over 50 Million people under 25. That’s as large as the baby boom in the US. And that’s just in Bihar (less than 1/10th of India’s population)
India is massive. The middle class across the entire country numbers 300 Million. That means that the consumer market in India is larger than the United States. Then, there are the 700 Million in the lower class.
From the bus windows, it seems like they all live in Bihar. The roadsides are crowded with every imaginable form of small commercial/retail venture. There are thatched huts, poured concrete shotgun shacks and lots of smoke.
We’ve seen plenty of poverty on the trip but here, it’s relentless. Mile after mile, the villages, pressed against the roadside, start to blur together. There’s a Hindu shrine every 100 yards, small shops selling essentials and people everywhere scratching out an existence.
The road is terrible. We are driving down what will be a four lane highway ten years from now. Today, we bounce slowly down one construction project and then switch highway sides to drive down the next segment. It’s grinding.
For the most part, my travel mates endure <–Previous – Next–>
