Fasting and Furious

Hazaribagh

Goat count: 7

Mango chicken count: 0

This is more like it. Ducking and weaving, barelling headlong into yet another set of headlights belonging to an even bigger, wobblier truck that will surely be the end of me. Horn blaring, our local driver plays a cheeky game of peek-a-boo with the oncoming traffic. He's too close to the lorry in front to be able to see around, so he swerves out and then quickly back to the safety of the left lane to avoid the truck, car, motorcyclist or cow closing in on us.

The drive from Ranchi airport to Hazaribagh, where the Jesuit mission has been in operation since the 1940s, is long and... bumpy. The driver speaks only Hindi, but when Father Tony - our host - utters a brief instruction to him, I am certain the instruction is to slow down on the potholes for our benefit. It's also possible that it's more along the lines of "it's pitch dark outside, better flick the headlights on", as we pass one of the only clear signs that Jarkhand is even aware of the 21st Century - a brand new KFC complex. It's only recently opened, but like everything here, no matter how shiny, high-tech and new, it somehow looks incomplete. Maybe it's the wild pigs walking around in the car park.

We whizz through village after village; markets of sellers with beans and bananas and potatoes and grains spread out on small rugs on the dust. Run-down, doorless corrugated iron huts with red Vodafone logos splashed across the front. A Bank of India branch appears to have only part of a roof. Instead of spending big on structural security, the banks here are instead protected by dozens of armed guards.

This is more like it.