There was silence while Jadob drank tea and looked at the photograph. It was actually a very good photograph.

‘I have been dreaming,’ said the mahji.

His dreams were very important for the people of Deogan. Not because they had a deep meaning, but just because the mahji was old, and thought to be wise. And the dreams of a wise person must be wise, too, mustn’t they?

‘What have you been dreaming of?’

‘Potatoes.’

Jadob mastor tried his best to stay calm.

‘You always dream of potatoes. Will you stop doing that, and think of what is going to happen next? I am quite sure the surveyors will not return. The government will try to pretend everything is all right here. But I am not sure what Patnaik will do. We have to be alert. And you have to meet with the other headmen, and decide on how, and where, we will have people sitting down with banners, in protest. Now rest. We will talk in the evening. And please, if you can, stop dreaming of potatoes and start dreaming of your people. They need you.’

That evening, a group arrived in Deogan from Balangir. They belonged to the organisation that had built the new temple in the town. They had suddenly remembered their ‘tribal brothers’, and told the mahji that they supported the Gonds. No god or goddess could be insulted like this, they said. The hill was sacred, and the government would not be allowed to remove the Gonds.

Jadob mastor did not really like these people. He later told the mahji not to trust them, because they thought only of their own interests. The mahji was quiet. Later at night, Jadob and the mahji met the headmen of the other Gond villages. It was decided that at least two hundred people would sit with banners at the entrance to Deogan, so that visitors would know that the Gonds were still protesting. People from all the Gond villages would take turns sitting at the place. Nobody could sit there all the time, because they had crops to cultivate, cows and goats to milk, and fish to catch. And there had been no rains. It was turning into a difficult summer, but the Gonds knew all about difficult summers.

The next day, Korok limped slowly to the epho’s house in the morning and started work on the garden. The flowers and plants, he was relieved to see, had survived without damage the one day that he had been absent, but he just couldn’t take chances. He had a slight fever, and his back hurt.