Sakri, in Madhubani district, is the railway knot of central Mithila: Sakri Junction is where the line from Darbhanga splits toward Madhubani and the Nepal-border town of Jaynagar on one side, and toward Nirmali and the Kosi country on the other. For generations of Maithils heading to work, to college or to the marriage-mart at Saurath, the change of trains at Sakri has been a familiar landmark.
A modest town in its own right, Sakri owes its importance to that crossing of routes — the kind of junction that quietly stitches a dispersed rural region together.