<B>Patna, Day 1

■ Arrival lounge, Patna airport</B>

A group of frantic people run to us with huge bouquets of red roses and thrust bouquets of red roses at us. We accept them haughtily- after all we are from Mauritius and we are visiting poor backward Bihar.

But oh. The roses smell wonderful and the people are actually touchingly nice. But that was to be expected, even required; we are after all, visiting from Mauritius!

■ <B>City Centre, Patna</B>

We are curious to see Bihar, slightly excited by the danger- after all Bihar is a dangerous place as everybody well knows. Patna by night surprised us slightly- there were tall buildings and well lit gardens. Whatever happened? We thought Bihar was a poor and backward state?

■ <B>Maurya Hotel, Patna</B>

The hotel is nice enough, looks clean. The staff is extremely polite, wonderfully efficient and goes out of their way to be nice but is never servile. But we notice that the people who have been escorting us to the hotel are actually armed policemen. They say it?s because we are accompanying the Prime minister and its part of protocol. Except that we have armed guards standing by our doors the whole night- we sure are being looked after!

■ <B> Dinning Room, Maurya Hotel</B>

The food is out of this world, the service good if a bit slow, the surrounding beautiful and to top it all, there?s a person singing ghazals while we?re eating! They even have diet coke in cans! We almost forget we are in Bihar!

<B>Patna, Day 2

■ Patna Airport</B>

We have gone to welcome Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam. We are searched before being let into the airport compound- all our bags are searched, every pen tested, every camera inspected. The army people don?t pay any attention to our angry demeanour. We but they cannot hear. We are suddenly very curious as to what had happened to the niceness of yesterday. They knew we were part of a Prime ministerial delegation and they knew we were from Mauritius, so why weren?t they being nice anymore? We got the answer- ?security is no joke, madam.? And what do you say to that?

As we await the Indian Airforce plane carrying Prime minister Ramgoolam to touch down, we get talking to the army people. Now that there?re convinced we had no intention of hurting the PM, they became very chatty. And they loved it when some of us spoke Bhojpuri to them. And we realised we actually liked them.

■ <B> Ramgoolam arrives</B>

The Prime minister came down the stairs of the plane, bent down and touched the ground in a sign of respect. People in Bihar had tears in their eyes- even the tough ones bearing an army uniform. ?Poignant, poignant?, they kept saying while shaking their heads. They made us emotional!

■ <B>Unveiling of statue</B>

We don?t know where they came from and why they were there but they came in masses to Patna to watch the unveiling ceremony of the statue of Sir Sewwosagur Ramgoolam. And they were carrying miniature Mauritian flags- a sure way of endearing themselves to us. And they seemed so happy to see us! We were in actual fact starting to get soft on the Biharis. And it came almost naturally?

■ <B>Press people in Patna</B>

?I think I will live here now, here the press likes me,? jokes the Prime Minister. Well, at any rate, they are impressed that a Prime minister from Mauritius is visiting?

■ <B>The Chief Minister</B>

He said ?You are not a guest here, this is your home.? Surprisingly, we didn?t laugh. We would have a day ago- actually when we were told ?welcome to your roots?, we did think it sounded a bit dramatic. Now we don?t know anymore?

■ <B> Governor?s residence</B>

By now, we are used to the unexpected but we had two more surprises awaiting us. The Governor of Bihar?s residence is absolutely grand. A white, massive colonial house, it has retained its aura of grandeur- which was not at all expected.

We were at the residence because we had been invited to a banquet. While waiting to be seated, we were served soup; so we looked around and realised that only the VVIPs, i.e ten people- were given chairs (and a table) to eat. The rest of us mortals (some twenty people) were expected to dine while standing?

The food was gorgeous though?

<B>Day 3

■ Helicopter trips</B>

After flying us to different villages, the pilots wanted to take a photo of us. Isn?t that sweet?

■ <B> Service</B>

Don?t know where the Biharis have learnt customer service but they should come and teach a few lessons to us Mauritians. Ever so polite, those people have been taught not to say no to any request from a guest. Except of course, that sometimes they say yes and you are kept waiting!

■ <B> Harigaon</B>

We had never seen so many people gathered at one place before. Those people have walked 10 km to come to Harigaon to see the PM. And when they see us, they wave hoping we will wave back. And when we do wave back, they want to engage in lengthy conversations. Not one sign of aggressively.

■ <B>Last Day</B>

We all agree. Bihar did something to us - we became emotional. Maybe it was that water we drank?

Deepa BHOOKHUN</B> <I>(From Delhi)</I>