Nalanda, ahoy!

The year was 1995, and Bihar was completely preoccupied with assembly polls. The nation was waiting breathlessly since everybody wanted to know if Lalu Prasad Yadav would manage to hang on to the state.

The year was 1995, and Bihar was completely preoccupied with assembly polls. The nation was waiting breathlessly since everybody wanted to know if Lalu Prasad Yadav would manage to hang on to the state. I was in school then, but the tension at home was palpable. The worry was that some political goon would drive away with one of the family cars for campaign purposes; elections in Bihar were designed as a general free-for-all!

To make matters worse, my class was going for a picnic to Nalanda University, the Oriental seat of learning. I was thirteen years old, and according to my mother a little 8216;truant8217;. But the strongest resistance to my intended trip was still to come 8212; my father, overprotective to the last, pronounced, 8220;The situation is volatile. Don8217;t you realise the polls can get violent at any time?8221;

Nalanda, however, had caught my fancy. We had all read about Hieun Tsang, who is now called Xuan Zang. His historical accounts of the region was one of the first eye-witness accounts of life in early India. I argued incessantly with my father, asking him how he could deprive me of knowing more about an ancient university.

To tell you the truth, history was never my favourite subject, but something about Nalanda had caught my fancy. And it had nothing to do with arcane historical details. I had this on-going bet with my cousins living in Agra and Delhi that Bihar had a history far richer than anything their regions could boast of. A visit to Nalanda, I believed, would strengthen my argument immeasurably. It was certainly more pre-eminent than the sensuous symmetry of the British storehouse 8212; Gol Ghar in Patna 8212; and the ruins of Kumharar that tell the sad story of the Mauryan empire8217;s fall from grace. In fact, I had already boasted about Nalanda to my cousins and this was why the trip to Nalanda was absolutely crucial to me. It was a matter of not just personal but Bihar8217;s honour.

Next week, as two monks from China follow the ancient route that Xuan Zang took to Nalanda, I am finally being proved right. Bihar was indeed the centre of the world of learning!