Madhepura, a district headquarters in the Kosi region, is known for two very different things. Just beside it stands Singheshwar Sthan, one of the most revered Shiva shrines of eastern Mithila, thronged in the month of Shravan. And in modern times the district became a byword for the assertive backward-caste politics of the Kosi belt — the home district of B. P. Mandal, whose Mandal Commission reshaped Indian public life.
A great electric-locomotive factory now sits here too, so that Madhepura joins old pilgrimage, fierce politics and new industry in one Kosi-side town.