‘Ek Bihari sau pe bhaari’: This is a phrase I have heard hundreds of times growing up in a Bihari household. While the phrase echoes the pride of coming from a state rich in culture and knowledge, it is marred with something deeper – the fight to survive and the shame that comes with it.

Being a 90s kid, the horror stories of Bihar aren’t something unfamiliar to me. The history of my homeland was always told to me in quiet whispers – the kidnappings, the caste wars, and the corruption seemed like a part of the culture to me. Bihar seemed like a place you’d live in only to leave, which is what my parents did. This is why reading Mrityunjay Sharma’s Broken Promises wasn’t a jarring experience for me, it was a familiar story of distorted idealism in a broken state, a story I have been he

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