Even the way he opened Korok’s box and ate the rotis and vegetables was slow and methodical. And after eating, he held out his hand and Korok dropped a bundle of local beedis in it. In jail beedis were currency if you wanted friends or favours, but for undertrials they were difficult to come by. Korok, the good son, got him a bundle each week, all made in the village.

‘How is your garden?’ asked Korok’s father, in the weekly ritual they had of the same set of questions and answers. Not ‘the’ garden. Ever since his father had been arrested, it had become ‘your’ garden.

‘It is good.’

‘The epho lets you work in the garden, he does not cause problems?’

Korok worked in the big garden in the Divisional Forest Officer’s house. This was where his father used to work. Now Korok worked among the rare flowers and medicinal plants, and so well-known was his garden that it was his garden. The DFO, or epho as people here called such an important man, did not seem to mind that a jailed timber smuggler’s son worked in his house. But as everyone knew, only the police called Korok’s father a timber thief.

‘No, he is mostly away. I haven’t seen him since last week.’

And the week before, when Korok’s father had asked him the same question, he had given the same answer, because nothing much changed in their world, except the seasons.

Meeting time was over. Korok took the empty tiffin box from his father and put twenty rupees in his hands.

There remained the matter of the bicycle.

‘Korok? What about the bicycle?’

‘I am going to talk to them about it.’

‘Be careful. How many more times are you going to ask?’

‘One more time.’

Between the two of them, Korok could have avoided his father. But sooner or later, he would have to deal with the bicycle.

Which is why he walked out of the jail and down two streets towards the chowk till he came to a big white single-storey building with a red-tinned roof which said: ‘Balangir Police Station’. And next to it, in letters of the same size, ‘Office of the Superintendent of Police, Balangir District.’ This was one of the Big Places of Balangir.