They had been friends since Dileepan had been transferred to the local branch of the bank. Dileepan did not join their drinking sessions often, and the doctor regarded him with a bit of contempt because of it. Dileepan drank only beer, and that too in moderate amounts. The doctor liked acting out, for the entertainment of his drinking buddies, a fake story about how Dileepan got senselessly drunk after only a glass of beer.

‘I don’t think there is any man who doesn’t want the whole world to know that he has partaken in poached meat,’ Shaji, the doctor’s manservant, said.

Dileepan looked admiringly at him, a man who spent his entire life in the kitchens of prominent men, and laughed loudly in a self-congratulatory manner.

‘Drinking arrack, playing cards and hunting. These are the real signs of masculinity,’ Shaji continued, making them laugh uproariously again.

‘I went hunting once,’ Dileepan said. ‘When I was quite young . . .’

‘What for, to catch flies?’ the doctor asked, looking at him with distaste. The front of his shirt was stained with bits of meat and meat juice. He poured the gravy into his glass and drank it in one gulp, and then began licking it clean with his finger. ‘Sambar this is not. A muntjac, most likely.’

Ignoring Dileepan’s protests, Shaji supported the doctor. ‘There isn’t even a dozen sambar deer in the High Range!’ he said disdainfully.

Later, Dileepan stood in front of a government official who regarded him with the same disdain. He was submitting an application for a gun licence.

‘Licences are given if the gun is for the protection of crops,’ the official informed him. ‘How many hectares of land do you have?’

‘I am living in a rented house here . . .’

‘Your permanent address is in Idukki. How much land do you have there?’

‘Ten cents.’

‘Must have got it because of the Land Reform Act, right?’ The man looked at Dileepan and gave him a condescending smile.

Still, Dileepan managed to procure the licence after pleading with the official that it was his long-standing desire to own a gun, and reminding him of the many personal loans the bank sanctioned for government employees. When he stepped out of the office, he imagined he had caught a porcupine in a trap.

The phone rang, and the voice at the other end told him that they would deliver some wild boar meat by noon. He had been pestering them with calls for a few days now, and the man said it was the first time the same person had made so many calls.

‘It’s like you are desperate for some life-saving medicine. Like you’ve become addicted to the taste of wild meat . . .’

‘It’s not the taste of the meat itself,’ Dileepan said. ‘It’s the taste behind the meat . . .’

‘Not sure what you mean, sir . . .’ The man sounded baffled.

Dileepan had met him for the first time when he had come to the bank looking for an agricultural loan.