Aerial view of a region near the Arampur nexus

Individual villages in India do not exist as some island -- independent and self-sufficient. Rather, they thrive within a complex network of human interaction locally, regionally, nationally, and, increasingly, internationally. The most immediate connection for Arampur is a constellation of about a dozen villages which is understood by residents even though it has no distinctive local term. When a resident intends to refer to these villages in a collective manner, she simply calls them "Arampur," expecting the listener to understand the broader meaning which she intends. For the sake of clarity, we will refer to this larger Arampur as "the Arampur nexus." The villages of the nexus vary in size from about 500 to 1500 while nearly 6400 people reside in Arampur. Because of its large size, Arampur acts as a social and economic gravitation center around which the much of the surrounding villages' lifestyle's rotate. Farmers from throughout the nexus buy seed and sell grain at the many grain dealers there. Although each village has at least a few small shops, their residents walk, bicycle, or drive to Arampur to buy clothes, books, medicines, sweets, or special food items. As the center of the nexus, Arampur has the area's busiest tea stalls which serve salty snacks with a scolding concoction of tea, milk, and sugar to customers who are most often lost in conversation with one another. Each component village of the nexus varies in area, population, and composition. For instance, the religious composition varies as widely by village as any factor with most having no Muslims while others have nearly an even split of Hindus and Muslims. The temple of Shastri Brahm and some of the Sufi tombs in Arampur attract Hindus and Muslims from throughout the nexus, as well as from within and without Bihar. Schools also work to integrate the nexus residents whose families can afford to allow them to attend. Although the economic burden of foregoing the field labor of one's children may be prohibitive for many of the poorest residents, students come from a wide range of backgrounds. This becomes particularly clear at Arampur High School where students from throughout the nexus come to learn. The impressive ruined architecture from the era of Sher Shah Suri found in the area and the comments of past travellers (like the nineteenth-century British ethnographer William Crooke) hint at the possible past significance of the nexus area as both an administrative and pilgrimage center. Some of the oral narratives of Arampur residents about their village portray the decline of what was once a considerable town that spread beyond the current borders of the village and into parts of the nexus.