The meeting then broke into little groups, as it always did, discussing what to have for dinner. The villagers invited their neighbours to eat with them. Meetings at Deogan were often like weddings or funerals, with everyone taking the chance to have a feast.

Korok excused himself from his uncle and went to the mahji, who was giving orders to his wife and daughters about dinner.

‘Ei, Korok.’

‘Mahji, I have found something important about the mine.’

‘Important, Korok? Have you heard something?’ said Jadob, who talked to everyone, young and old, with courtesy.

‘Yes, Jadob mastor, I was told by the epho’s daughter who has a kompitar that a company wants the government to help them dig the mine,’ said Korok, trying to express everything he knew in one neat sentence.

The sentence was clearly too complex for the mahji.

‘Korok, you stay and have dinner with us. Kompitar, you said? Jadob, did you hear that? He said something about a kompitar.’

Dinner was grand and had many vegetables and pork and red rice. Korok grinned and bobbed his head at every helping from the mahji’s wife and three daughters, the youngest a few years older than him. Korok ate and ate till he thought he could go without food for the next four or five days.

Jadob, keen of mind, had fixated on the kompitar.

‘You say the epho’s daughter has a kompitar?’

‘Yes, she showed me pictures on the machine. She read about a company which owns mines in Chhattisgarh. The Company says it is going to dig a mine here.’

‘You understand what this means?’ Jadob asked the mahji. ‘The government is going to make us leave and give the land to the Company.’

‘But Rath did not tell us anything about the Company,’ objected one of the headmen, a small old fellow who had eaten about half a pig by then and looked ready to eat the other half.

‘That is what the sorkar does, isn’t it? It hides things and pretends no one will notice,’ Jadob said.

‘Ei, Jadob, maybe it is not as bad as that. Who knows what one can find in a kompitar. Our Korok knows as much about companies as about bauxite,’ said the mahji. Korok pretended not to hear and continued eating. Bauxite and mines and all could wait. The pork was delicious.

‘That may be so. Let us see what the Collector tells us. Then we decide. Korok, you come with us to Balangir too.’

Korok looked up, his mouth full, at Jadob and the mahji, in turn.

‘Why not? Your father would have come with us. He is not here, so you should come,’ said Jadob.