Once again a big convoy pulled up and the big man was set upon by fawning local leaders. The mahji and other notables had polite words with him before he took the stage.

He was a grim-looking fellow, full of what the cadre called ‘purpose’. He began by telling a story of some tribesmen in mythology and said ‘our tribal brothers’ were the rock of rural India. But now, he said, his voice rising and falling like a stage actor’s, this rock was being eroded by enemies. One of them, he said, were those who tried to change the way of life of ‘our brothers’. Outsiders. People who had different gods and systems, a different way of life. These people, he warned in a stern voice, were everywhere, and the Gonds had to beware of them. Korok immediately thought of the gentlemen who wanted the Gonds not to eat beef, but it seemed the big leader was talking of other people. It was a bit confusing.

A few of the elders had actually not managed to repeat their disappearing act from earlier and were sitting towards the back, on the ground, looking a little bored and trapped. The only thing they had to look forward to was the bottles of mahua beer the mahji had promised them. He had even told them that if this kind of thing continued, he would take to the bottle permanently.

Korok wondered whether he should ask these old men what the leader was talking about, but around then the leader made his first mistake. He was continuing about this mysterious first enemy of the Gonds when he raised his voice and said ‘there are those who encourage our Gond brothers to eat pork’.

Korok thought that was a very strange thing to say, for if there is any common universal love among the Gonds, it is for pork, although it was just as difficult to get for someone poor like him as beef was. But if this mysterious enemy, according to the leader, was plotting to make the Gonds eat pork, why, he must be an idiot. No one had to make them eat pork: they could do it on their own.

This was followed shortly after by the leader’s second mistake, when he said this enemy was also plotting to get them drunk. The elders, who very much looked forward to this, began grinning broadly and shaking their heads. Whoever had been advising the big leader about the Gonds didn’t know the first thing about them.

Across the crowd a silence began to spread, replaced by the beginnings of smiles. The local politicians, who were there to make sure the crowd remained enthusiastic, started getting puzzled.