‘Okay, now,’ she tapped the letters on the board, very fast, her fingers flying with a dexterity Korok hadn’t suspected of her. ‘I asked my mother but she hadn’t heard anything, so I searched for “bauxite”, that’s the ore of aluminium those people want to dig up, and “Deogan”, and so on, and found this. Watch.’

A few more taps and what she called a ‘page’ opened on the wonder machine. A lot of words and photographs. Big machines, men in yellow hats, smiling villagers.

‘I found news of a company that mines bauxite. This place has information about them. They … Korok, this is very serious. They say here that they will begin digging around here because Devi Hills has the biggest store of bauxite in this part of Odisha. It could even be bigger than most of their mines in Chhattisgarh. And they have a lot of mines. A lot of them. Iron, bauxite, other metals. It is a big company and has mines in other countries also. It is so complicated I don’t really understand this, but my mother might explain to me later.’

Korok was really out of his depth here. The signboard and those men had convinced him this was being done by the government, but now Anchita was saying it was a company. He asked her.

‘As far as I understand, it works like this. The company digs its mines and gets the metal out. The government gets land for the company. I have been reading of other mines. In places where the metal is under villages and so on, the government is responsible for moving the people. The company pays the government from the profit it gets after digging up the metal.’

Korok still didn’t understand it. ‘But Devi Hills is not owned by the sorkar. It is not a part of the Reserved Forest. It is sacred land, Gond land.’

‘It doesn’t matter. The government can move any people it wants to, if needed.’

‘But you are saying this company will dig the mine, not the government.’

‘Yes, they’re saying that. See?’ She pointed to a lot of English words on her kompitar screen.

‘But will the sorkar just make us go because a company wants to dig up metal?’

‘I don’t understand much myself, but the company is saying it will start digging by the beginning of next year. This means the government has agreed to it.’

‘The mahji doesn’t know about this. Maybe the government doesn’t know either. Maybe this company is just saying things …’