As in all hillside settlements, comrades were few in number but full in strength locally, and it did not take long for them to assemble.

‘It’s that Kaalan Varky’s buffalo,’ said the man who looked like their leader.

Ramming his right fist into the air, one of his comrades belted out a slogan.

‘Varkicha, you nincompoop,

We’ll get you, your time is up . . .’

The others did not take up the slogan.

‘There’s no need for that,’ the leader said. ‘It’s not his fault that the buffaloes ran off. Poor man, he gave us five hundred rupees for the panchayat elections, remember?’

Besides, Varky never made them wait too long when they went to buy meat.

The sloganeer tried again in a louder voice.

‘Buffalocha, you nincompoop

Are you a man, show your face

You’ll die without seeing your mother’s face . . .’

This time, his comrades took up the slogan, and belting it out at the top of their voices, they set out in a procession towards the police camp. The nearest police station was in a town twenty-five kilometres away, but a battalion of black-clad, gun-bearing policemen had recently set up camp at the government school because of a rumour that a gang, suspected to be armed, had been spotted in the local area. They were not pot-bellied like ordinary policemen, and were often seen marching past the lanes in front of the school or going into the forest in search of the suspected armed men. They spent the rest of the time out of their uniforms, eating, sleeping or playing volleyball.

As soon as he heard the comrades’ complaint, the chief of the battalion issued a command in English, and in a matter of seconds several policemen, clad in shiny shoes and impeccable uniforms, stood in attention in front of him.

‘See, that’s all there’s to it,’ said the leader to his comrade, the sloganeer. ‘Those idiots are running after the buffaloes while these policemen here have machine guns. They’ll make quick work of the animals.’

The chief bellowed again, and the policemen divided themselves into two groups and ran to the front and back entrances of the school. They quickly bolted the gates and secured the compound.

‘You can leave now,’ the chief told the comrades. ‘We can’t simply shoot the buffaloes. The district collector has to give the order first.’

The policemen returned to their daily duties.

Meanwhile, some others went to the forest office, but there too they were met with disappointment. The forest office could get involved only if the animals were wild, they were told. They were warned, too, that if the animals were killed and they turned out to be wild, everyone involved would be arrested.

All morning, the two buffaloes and the groups of men chasing them had run mostly in two different directions. But there was one occasion when they all came together. The incident took place in a piece of land, newly hoed and readied to plant tapioca, that belonged to a hard-working farmer who was the father of a young man named Sudheer. Having recently returned home from his studies in Bangalore, Sudheer spent most of his time online. Although he did not know even his next-door neighbours, and his compatriots had hardly set eyes on him in recent years, he had five thousand friends and thousands of followers on Facebook. His father had no use for him, so never asked him to help out with the cultivation.