‘Oh, those people? And is Korok worried about a few sorkari men? Is he?’ the mahji washed his face and his grey hair vigorously and dried himself with a gamchha. ‘Come sit with me.’

He led Korok to the other side of the vegetable patch, to a thatched cowshed, where his four cows were feeding. The mahji sat on the bare ground outside and looked up at the sky.

‘It hasn’t started raining yet. I wonder when it will. How are your flowers?’

Korok told him that the flowers were doing well.

‘I keep telling my wife. Anyone can grow potatoes. Anyone can pick wild flowers from the hill. But only Korok can grow wild flowers in his garden. That’s what I tell my wife,’ said the mahji.

He looked up at the sky again and scratched his armpit.

‘Those sorkari people came to me also on their way to the hill. They said they want to open a big khaan here. A big mine. I saw the signboard they put up.’

He smiled the brightest smile a man with eighteen teeth can manage and clapped Korok on his shoulder. ‘You don’t know much about the sorkar, Korok. It is a big, big creature. It is so big it doesn’t even know itself. Those people will find out this is sacred land and not part of the Reserved Forest, and will go away. They will build their khaan elsewhere, wherever they want to dig. The sorkar won’t bother digging up a sacred hill for a few pieces of metals. You just see, they will even forget they put up a signboard here in a few weeks.’

Now the mahji was scratching behind his neck. One of his cows mooed, the sound amplified inside the dim cowshed.

‘You just see. That’s how the sorkar works. It forgets. Sometimes, Korok, it is best if the sorkar forgets you.’

And after that reassurance, Korok was sent home with two ripe brinjals and a handful of large potatoes to make lunch with.

Perhaps the mahji was right, thought Korok while cooking. After all, what did he know of the government? He had only seen the police, the court and the jail. If the sorkar was as vast and complex as the mahji thought it to be, surely Deogan was not so important to be uprooted and dug up for some—what was it—‘bauxite’? There must be enough land from here to Kantabanji to dig any number of mines. And west of that, in Chhattisgarh, there were more mines than anyone could count.

Still, Korok knew a thing or two about government officials. The men yesterday were clearly doing something that was important to them. The way they were asking questions and looking at the hill, all that complex equipment they had. They were serious people, and serious people didn’t come to Deogan to forget it afterwards.