In the remote hills of Bihar's Kaimur district, a village's unique tag has become a symbol of its prolonged neglect. Barwan Kalan, infamously known as the "hamlet of bachelors," has seen no weddings for over five decades, not by choice, but due to a crippling absence of basic infrastructure.
A Tag of Despair, Not Celebration
The village gained a peculiar mention on the government's rural tourism website in 2022, highlighting its status as a bachelor hamlet due to a lack of services. However, for the residents, this recognition brought incredulity, not pride. Nand Lal Singh, the panchayat mukhiya, clarified that the reality is far from any romantic folklore. The core issue is the severe deficit of fundamental amenities.
"Out of the 14 villages in the panchayat, Barwan Kalan, Barwan Khurd, Sarwandag, Surkur Khurd, and Tori have the highest number of bachelors because there is no motorable road, no drinking water, and unreliable electricity," Singh explained from the district headquarters in Bhabua. "It is difficult to live here, let alone host marriages."
Isolation Amidst Tourist Spots
The irony is stark. The village sits merely 10 km from the Maa Mundeshwari Wildlife Eco Park and Telhaar Kund Waterfall, an ecotourism facility inaugurated by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. While tourists visit these spots with relative ease, Barwan Kalan remains trapped in isolation.
The nearest hospital and police station are a daunting 45 km away. Summers are particularly harsh, with handpumps running dry, forcing women to trek nearly a kilometre for water. For any special occasion, villagers must manually prepare a temporary kutcha road for vehicles to enter. Intermittent solar power and near-non-existent mobile networks compound their woes. "Even our cellphones don’t work properly," Singh added.
Daily Struggles and Broken Marriages
For locals like Pappu Kumar, daily life is a relentless challenge. Men migrate for work as rain-fed farming is unreliable in the hilly terrain. Arranging a water tanker for functions requires building a makeshift path. The struggles are not new; reports from as early as 2009 documented the village's plight.
Back then, septuagenarian Bulai Ram's simple anecdote—of being unable to change his dhoti for a week due to a lack of assistance—painted a vivid picture of hardship. The village, perched on a Kaimur hill peak, requires a four-hour trek through thorny fields and treacherous rocks. Among roughly 200 tribal families, over 115 men remained unmarried due to this geographic prison.
Tradition forbids marriage within the same village, and arranging weddings with families from the foothills is arduous. Baraats (wedding processions) often turn back midway, unwilling to climb the difficult terrain. Some desperate men, like Uddhal Yadav, have resorted to hiding their village's identity until after wedding rituals are complete.
"Many marriages are fixed but not solemnised," resident Munna Ram told TOI in 2009. "The groom’s party often refuses to undertake the journey up the hill." For men like Rajagiri Singh, leaving is not an option. "My fields and ancestral property are here. How can I leave them? Five marriage negotiations have broken down. My hopes have too," he lamented.
Resilience and a Flicker of Hope
Frustrated by government apathy, villagers once took matters into their own hands. Armed with axes and shovels, they flattened a 4.6 km stretch to allow tractors through, only to face an FIR from the forest department for building in a protected area.
Even in 2025, challenges persist. A telephonic conversation with Pappu Kumar revealed that while a BSNL network sometimes works and solar panels provide some electricity, there is no light at night. However, he noted a slight improvement, with more bachelors getting married recently.
The story of Barwan Kalan is a paradox. While it may attract morbid curiosity as a tourist oddity, its residents continue their battle for basic dignity. For villagers like Chandradev Yadav, the demand is simple. "We want what everyone else has," he says. "We want to live here, marry, and raise families, without having to struggle just to survive." Until roads, water, and reliable power arrive, this hamlet of bachelors remains a stark testament to resilience amid neglect.
