Part 1 Chapter 1 Summary

The novel opens with a description of the vast expanse of land that surrounds travelers on their way to Krishnapur, a town that housed the administration of the British government in this part of Northern India during the era of the British occupation. Mr. Hopkins, the Collector, is in charge of the cantonment, and the first signs of trouble arrive in February of 1857 when boxes of chapatis mysteriously arrive around the Residency and the British compound. Mr. Hopkins attends a meeting of the Krishnapur Poetry Society, where several of the local women, wives of administrators and other officials, read their verses and suffer the criticism of the Magistrate, who also lectures his audience on phrenology, a now-obsolete study of the shape of the human skull. The Collector becomes aware that trouble may be brewing in the region and decides to have...