Which is how he got to hear of the delegation from Deogan, and the mine, and the Collector. Interesting, he thought. It had not yet become news, but it might. He had to keep an eye on Deogan. Nothing interesting ever happened in that part of the district, but that did not mean nothing ever would.

5

MAY-JUNE

Jadob might have left behind the wonders of eastern Odisha, but he still had a lot of friends and well-wishers in the big cities like Cuttack and Bhubaneshwar. Some of them visited him from time to time, and knew the villagers. Therefore, one evening a fortnight later, he got a call on his cellphone. He kept a cellphone, although reception was not too good, and he had to charge it at the headman’s house in his village, which had an electricity connection.

The call sent him running to his headman, who in turn rushed to Deogan’s mahji. A group of experts from the Ministry of Mines in Delhi was coming to take a proper look at the great bauxite treasure lying under the Gonds’ land. This was the moment. The villagers could either accept what was happening, or let the government know that they no longer believed its word.

After years of dealing with the government, it was an easy choice.

A moderately good playwright could have written a play on the events that followed. It would have been a rather good play, too, told from the point of view of Sorkari Patnaik. The playwright might even have called it Sorkari Patnaik’s Summer of Sorrow, which has a certain ring to it. Because the most feared man in Deogan was about to see the beginning of his troubles.

The group of experts arrived at Balangir a week after Jadob received the phone call. The task of taking them to the site and back to town fell on the police, and Sorkari Patnaik was more than happy to do it. Government officials very rarely needed his direct help.