A few minutes after Patnaik got the call from the Important Person on the day after the lathi charge, the Person had called up Behera too. The Collector had known he would get a call the moment he saw the newspaper, which, unlike Patnaik, he made a point to read every day. Behera was a clever man. He had to be, or he would not have become the Collector. So, as soon as he saw the newspaper, Behera knew somebody much more important than him would call him up.

The Important Person had first told him, in long sentences with long words, what an idiot Patnaik was. Behera wanted to agree, but did not say anything. You could not trust an Important Person. Someday Behera might make a mistake, and the Important Person might call Patnaik to tell him what Behera thought of him. And Behera did not want to make an enemy of Patnaik, the second most important person in Balangir.

The caller had told Behera that it was not his fault, and all he had to do was keep an eye on things, and report about everything, including what Patnaik was doing, to the Important Person. The Collector was also told to stand by, that somebody would be sent to solve the problem. A specialist. Behera had nodded. He understood.

On the morning of this day, Behera had got another call from the Important Person. Balangir had become famous in the state, and even in Delhi. Reports about the Gonds and their sacred hill were in all the newspapers, big and small. TV news reports talked about the villages, and the bauxite deposits in the hill. Politicians were just starting to arrive.

The Important Person had orders for Behera. Very specific orders.

So it was afternoon, and Balangir was slowly roasting under the summer sun, and Collector Behera was sitting at the desk, thinking.

Then he stood up and walked to his safe, a small piece of steel furniture to his left. He opened it, and took out a slim booklet. It was not a secret document. Every collector in every district of the country had this booklet. It explained what needed to be done in case of drought. Behera had memorised it, and dozens of other documents like it, long ago when he was giving the exams that would get him into the civil service. He just wanted to hold the document in his hands, and take a look. Some of the rules had changed since then.

Drought can be imagined as a picture of a dry, cracked piece of land, but that is not the whole story. There are three kinds of drought, according to the government and people who know these things. Meteorological, hydrological and agricultural.