The foothills of the Deccan Plateau loom behind a village of the Arampur nexus.

Human and natural environments blend far more seamlessly in Arampur than in the cities or suburbs of India. Agriculture requires most residents to leave their home, walk through Arampur's streets, and work in the fields of that or another village. Most residents closely follow the weather, the position of the sun, and the phases of the moon in concern for their impact on agriculture or in expectation of religious practices or holidays. Homes have few amenities in terms of climate control: ceiling fans and electric heaters for the middle class and wealthy, and only at times of the day when electricity is available. Arampur and its surrounding villages stand at the border of the Gangetic Valley. To the north, the Ganges River meanders across the expansive and flat plains that it has eroded in its passage eastward across north India. To the south, the Deccan Plateau rises as a tableland dominating the center of the Subcontinent. The residents of the Arampur nexus understand these two regions as very distinct yet integrate both into their everyday lives. Historically, the Ganges River has long provided access across the length of north India. In company with the Indus River in what is now Pakistan, the Ganges allowed a seasonal riverine traffic to nurture urban sites throughout the area south of the Himalaya and Hindu Kush mountains. In the sixteenth century, Sher Shah Suri established the basis of the Grand Trunk Road which ran from the Khyber Pass in the east (now Pakistan) to the Gangetic Delta on the Bay of Bengal. During their imperial domination of South Asia from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, the British Empire improved this road and paired it with a rail line, the Grand Chord. As much as the residents of Arampur associate the Gangetic Valley with urbanization and transportation, they think of the mountain country as jungli -- wild, undeveloped, and dangerous. Residents seldom journey there and the few who do go only to purchase cultivated tobacco or hunt wild animals. Very few residents marry into mountain families. Because precipitation runs off the nearby mountains onto the surrounding flood-enriched plain, the Arampur nexus has particularly good water resources. These primarily rely on the rains which the annual monsoon rains dump from July to September. Farming commences in earnest then and lasts throughout the dry season from September to March. The hot season brings devastatingly high temperatures which parch the earth, scorch vegetation, and winnow weak wildlife while ocassionally killing very young and elderly residents. The pace of life for most people slows dramatically at this time. Human activity profoundly impacts the natural environment. Agriculture has cleared most of the landscape surrounding Arampur, leaving only small groves of trees interspersed among the expansive fields divided by raised boundaries. Foxes, rabbits, snakes, and other small animals inhabit the fields whereas larger animals still range through the mountains. However the numbers of these has declined due to extensive hunting for food, treasure, and pleasure. Tigers, elephants, and sloth bears which once roamed the forests have all but disappeared from this part of India although monkeys, boar, and deer can still be found in relative abundance. In both hill and field country a wide variety of birds thrive, ranging in size from the kingfisher which perches patiently above a pond on a telephone wire to vultures which make thermal vortices visible as they orbit as a group on the rising air. The environmental impact of the Green Revolution which began in the 1950s and allowed India to become a grain exporter due to the widespread application of new farming technologies has yet to be assessed. No one knows what long-term side effects the reliance on chemical fertilizers, increased use of pumped water for irrigation, and other innovations may engender.