On the last day of February this year, Ajay Kumar Yadav brought his bride home to a hero’s welcome. That is because, Neetu, his wife, was the first to marry someone from this remote village in decades and move in. It was possible only because the villagers had themselves hewn a six km stretch of road, cutting through the hills and forest, thus paving the way for marriages in Bihar’s ‘village of bachelors’.
“It is because of this road that I got married, otherwise I too would have been just one of the scores of bachelors here,” Ajay Yadav triumphantly told this reporter at the village, which can be reached only after a 10 km trek.
Inaccessible corner
For over 50 years, Barwan Kala has been an inaccessible corner, up on the Kaimur hills in the western most part of Bihar. It has not witnessed any band , baaja or baraat (marriage ceremony). Relatives of prospective brides who managed to make it to the village retreated in haste, preferring to give their daughters in marriage elsewhere. This left as many as 121 villagers — of all ages, bachelors. Those who were lucky enough had to go down the hill, take temporary shelter in a relative’s house or in some guest house to get married. Over time, the village of over 6,000 people and 400 households earned the title of ‘village of bachelors’ with the highest number of unmarried men in any Bihar village. Barwan Kala in Adhaura block, 300 km from Patna, is like an inaccessible fortress. Adhaura, is also in the worst Maoist affected part of Kaimur district, which shares a border with Uttar Pradesh. Just a few days ago, Maoists killed Jitendra Kharwar near Barwan Kala village on March 2, when he refused to serve them food at night.
For long, the village had no road, electricity, water, or mobile phone network and no primary health centre. The nearest police station is 45 km away. The women fetch water from a well nearly 1.5 km away, as all 12 hand pumps have gone dry.
Except an upgraded middle school, a public distribution system shop (PDS) and some solar panels pitched randomly, the village has virtually no link with the rest of the world.
“All our requests for a road fell on deaf ears. When elections came, politicians made promises but did nothing,” said former village head Nandlal Kharwar. In 2005, Ram Chandra Singh Yadav, a young contestant, assured the villagers that he too would not get married unless he could get a road for them. The villagers voted for him en masse. Yadav not only won the Assembly poll but also got married the next year and had a daughter.
Meanwhile, the number of bachelors kept increasing. “One day we thought enough is enough and decided to open up the hilly terrain ourselves and make a road”, village elder Bodha Singh Yadav said.
In January 2008, the villagers assembled with chisels, shovels, hammers, spades and other tools. While one group shoved big stone boulders aside, another hammered them into pieces to lay the road. Seven years later, in April 2015, they celebrated the construction of six km of road which reduced the circuitous route of 40 km to the block headquarters to just eight km. Tractors, Jeeps and motorcycles started plying.
Slapped with FIRs
But then, the Forest Department registered FIRs against seven villagers. “The area where they were building the road falls into a designated wildlife sanctuary where construction or any economic activity is banned under a Supreme Court order”, said a young Divisional Forest Officer, Satyajit Kumar. “Though I wish to, I can’t help the villagers with that road...my hands are tied under certain provisions,” he told The Hindu .
Nearly two years later, on February 28, the first marriage in Barwan Kala took place and the baraat , on tractors and bikes, accompanied the “over-aged bridegroom,” 28-year-old Ajay Kumar Yadav to the bride’s place, some 100 km away in Mahartha village.
The next day, the bride Neetu Kumari, 18, came to Barwan Kala in a Bolero, negotiating the difficult terrain in which her husband and other villagers had created the road. “It was like a dream come true. I got married just because of the road. If not for the road, who would have married a man getting on in years,” said Mr. Yadav.
“But my wife has not stopped crying, cursing her fate at coming to such a difficult place,” he added. “Yet, my marriage has rekindled hope among other eligible bachelors,” he said.
Road to marriages
Barwan Kala’s road to marriages has brought life and cheer in another household in the village. Buchun Singh Yadav was married to a girl from a less remote village in 2012. But the bride’s family had refused to send her to Barwan Kala unless the road was in place and became motorable. It was only on March 1 this year that his bride, Manju Devi, reached Buchun’s home with her belongings loaded on a tractor.
“Now, I hope to get married too,” said his young cousin brother Subhas Yadav, who is in college. And, so do the other bachelors.
