They Stole a Bridge. They Stole a Pond

And they promised to get everyone laid

After I recorded my episode on Bihar with Mohit Satyanand and Kumar Anand, we formed a Whatsapp group on the subject in which they’d post whatever they came across on the subject. Kumar, in particular, has started a project dedicated to Bihar, to dig deep into the subject. The idea is to collate all the data you can get on the state — and to tell stories about it that help us understand better just what’s going on.

There are such mad stories. There are dozens of them. And they fill me with both hope and despair — though of course the despair comes first.

My favourite is of the folks in Bihar who stole a bridge:

Thieves, posing as irrigation department officials, stole a 60-foot, 500-tonne steel bridge in Amiyawar village of Bihar's Rohtas district. The thieves with the help of bulldozers and gas cutters, cut and uprooted the entire bridge and loaded it onto vehicles. The old, dilapidated bridge was built on the Ara Canal in 1972. The thieves pretended to be officials of the Irrigation Department and also took the help of local departmental personnel. They stole the entire bridge in broad daylight.

One might now ask, what is one to do with a bridge? A bridge over what?

Well, now they’ve stolen a pond.

An entire pond was stolen by certain notorious elements in Bihar's Darbhanga district recently, leaving the residents shocked in the region, reported several publications.

The locals stated that an entire pond had gone missing and a hut was built over it. The land mafia who are accused of filling the pond allegedly fled the spot by the time cops arrived.

But these are trivial. Bridges and ponds are visible, and therefore easy targets. How do you target the dreams and sexual longings of thousands of dispersed men? In a masterclass of scamming, a gang in Bihar scammed over 10,000 men by promising them sex for which they would get paid.

The offer was tempting: ‘Meet a beautiful, married woman of your choice, enter into a physical relationship with her for baby-making. Get paid Rs 13 lakh if the woman gets pregnant. If it fails, still pocket Rs 5 lakh for your efforts. Discretion assured.’

The gullible ‘victims’—over 10,000 and counting—were apparently so hooked by the offer, or the photographs of women shared with them, that they fell for it like moths flying into candles.

By the time the Nawada district police in Bihar busted the racket on December 29 and arrested eight suspects from Gurma village, the list of victims had crossed 10,000 across several states.

[…]

Posing as agents of a private company called ‘All India Pregnant Job’, this scammer gang first procured data of individual males, including their phone numbers, from social media and other means, including private marketing companies, police said.

All India Pregnant Job! I take my hat off — no pun intended — to the genius who thought of that name.

Eight people have been arrested for this, including “a Class 12 passout,” but a future scammer could run this using just AI — which would provide the pics, nail the interactions with the duped, and use the data to become better at scamming. That said, there is no shortage of human labour in Bihar — and there is a shortage of opportunity.

Kumar runs a Twitter account called Bihar Review, and posts interesting links daily. And also great graphs. Here is one showing how starkly Bihar is behind the rest of the country.

Check out his breakdowns of income and urbanisation within Bihar, and some other tweets that should fill you with worry: 1, 2, 3.

Now, I said earlier that these stories fill me with both hope and despair. The cause for despair is obvious. Why hope? It cannot just be the mutton, right?

Well, check out this graph that shows how Bihar has the youngest population in this country:

Young people! The young have aspiration, hunger, new ways of thinking about the world. When there are no opportunities for them, this can indeed get directed into scams and the like — Bihar is a hotspot for them, in fact. But consider the creativity, the ingenuity, the initiative, the energy. Imagine if those had better outlets.

Bad governance and bad economics has gotten Bihar here — but good governance and good economics can turn it around. And human beings, especially if they are young, are the ultimate resource, as Julian Simon would say. In that sense, Bihar is resource-rich.

(And no, contrary to popular belief, population is not a problem. People are brains, not stomachs. See this column and this episode of Everything is Everything for more.)

My episode on Bihar was at attempt to get a better grip on the problem. Kumar is dedicating himself to it with a project that contains both a stock and a flow of knowledge. He will build a repository on Bihar that acts as a one-stop resource for everything you want to know about the state. That is the stock. He will also, via Twitter and Substack and podcasts, aim to create a flow of information about the state.

He’s just getting started. Get in touch with him if you’d like to help.

Where Did 2024 Come From?

My friend Gautam John once introduced me to the phrase, “the days are long but the years are short.” And bloody hell, it’s 2024. How did this happen? What next, 2030?

I intend to be more regular at this newsletter this year. One of the horrible things about 2023 for me was that I got no writing done. I will remedy that. Expect me in your inbox more often.

I kept The Seen and the Unseen going, and we now enter the eighth year. It’s bigger than me now, and that could both be a bug and a feature. I could look at it as a burden — or I could feel invigorated, and let it fill me with purpose. I’m taking the second approach. I feel positive. Let’s go!

I also started Everything is Everything, a YouTube show in which my friend Ajay Shah and I talk to each other an about an hour every week. There’s a learning curve, we’re getting better — and we’re having fun! Here are some episodes I love:

Episode 28: The Reformers

Episode 21: The Beauty of Finance

Episode 15: Math is Better Than the Brigadier’s Girlfriend

Episode 23: Seven Stories That Should Be Films

One more labour of love, one more journey. Please check out our channel, watch, like, subscribe, share.

All we got is you!