Anchita nodded, listening with interest, occasionally eating slices of cake. She had the appetite of five grown men, thought Korok. How could she like such sweet and sticky food?

‘Have those government men returned?’ Anchita asked.

‘I didn’t see them in the village today. The mahji says we needn’t worry about the government digging a khaan here.’

‘You know, I have been looking, and I found something I wanted to show you. Hold this, I’ll get my computer. Have more.’

Korok, left holding the box of cake, knew he should have expected the kompitar to show up sooner or later. The girl and her machine were inseparable.

No one could have guessed it, but Korok thought he knew a lot about kompitars. He had seen quite a few in his visits to the sorkari parts of Balangir. A few years ago, he had gone with his father and uncle for a hearing in a criminal case against his uncle at a magistrate’s court in town. Waiting for the magistrate to enter, he saw the record-keeper and magistrate’s assistant busy on both sides of the great man’s high chair, busy with their kompitars. Small cream-coloured TV sets they looked like, with boards on which the clerks tapped away busily. Korok would see more of them when his father was arrested and produced in court.

‘It is called a kompitar, Korok. It is a machine to write on, and do other things,’ his uncle had said with a sad smile. ‘They tell me it is a wonder machine. When I was small, they arrested your grandfather, and the magistrate’s assistants used to write their records on paper. Then they started writing on typewriters. Now they write on kompitars. But we Gonds are still in court.’ Later he got five months in Balangir Jail.

Oh, yes, Korok knew a lot about kompitars. He knew a lot more about courts and jails.

Anchita returned with the wonder machine. A coloured drawing of a strange-looking horse with a horn on its head was stuck on the side. She switched the kompitar on with a musical sound.

‘Do you know how to use this?’ she said, and immediately told herself, Foolish Question of the Day No. 1.

‘You use it to write,’ said Korok.

‘That too. But for now I will use it to go on the Internet. It is a … connection to a lot of other computers and people. You can find anything you want here, any information. Wait.’

It seemed to take some time for this connection, as she called it, to work, and Anchita seemed to be annoyed by it. Korok found it new and interesting and didn’t quite understand why she was apologising for something being ‘slow’.