Those same old men, when he came round to set up their accounts and assign their passwords, would ask him, ‘Hey! You know a bit about these things; what’s going on with all this Bharat and Awadh stuff? What was wrong with plain old India anyway? And when are we going to get cricket back on the satellite?’

For all his robot-wisdom, Sanjeev did not know. The news breathlessly raced on with the movements of politicians and breakaway leaders but everyone had long ago lost all clear memory of how the conflict had begun. Naxalites in Bihar, an over-mighty Delhi, those bloody Muslims demanding their own laws again? The old men did not expect him to answer, they just liked to complain and took a withered pleasure in showing the smart boy that he did not know everything.

‘Well, as long as that’s the last we see of them,’ they would say when Sanjeev replied with the spec of a Raytheon 380 Rudra I-war airdrone, or an Akhu scout mecha and how much much better they were than any human fighter. Their general opinion was that the Battle of Vora’s Wood - already growing back - was all the War of Separation Ahraura would see.

It was not. The men did return. They came by night, walking slowly through the fields, their weapons easily sloped in their hands. Those that met them said they had offered them no hostility, merely raised their assault rifles and shooed them away. They walked through the entire village, through every field and garden, up every gali and yard, past every byre and corral. In the morning their bootprints covered every centimetre of Ahraura. Nothing taken, nothing touched. What was that about? the people asked. What did they want?

They learned two days later when the crops began to blacken and wither in the fields and the animals, down to the last pi-dog, sickened and died.

~ * ~

Sanjeev would start running when their car turned into Umbrella Street. It was an easy car to spot, a big military hummer that they had pimped Kali-black and red with after-FX flames that seemed to flicker as it drove past you. But it was an easier car to hear: everyone knew the thud thud thud of Desi-metal that grew guitars and screaming vocals when they wound down the window to order food, food to go. And Sanjeev would be there, What can I get you sirs? He had become a good runner since coming to Varanasi. Everything had changed since Ahraura died.