Changel: the Biography of a Village

by Arvind N. Das

This is the story of a village marooned in time. As a student of St. Stephen's College in the late Sixties, Bachcha's preoccupations have to do with the happenings in China, Vietnam, the Beatles and Bob Dylan... Then a letter summoning him to his grandmother's funeral in Changel, a remote village in Bihar, focuses his attention closer home. He makes the journey to Changel only to discover that while its pastoral scenery remains the same, the village has witnessed no essential developmental change. How, Bachcha wonders, did Changel survive in virtual isolation for 300 years? He sets out to resolve the riddle of its origins and, in the process, discovers his own roots.

193 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 1996