But the big leader had moved on to his next theme. The second enemy of the Gonds, he said, were those who tried to uproot them from their homes. He said he wanted the Gonds to progress; he said he would create jobs for them. This, once again, puzzled Korok because Collector Behera’s men had been saying the same thing: that the Gonds would get jobs when the mine came up. But for this to happen the villagers would have to give up the hill. What the Gonds wanted was to continue as they were, and if the police stopped arresting them all the time, that would be a great favour.

The big leader however cleared this bit up with the next part—his plan for Deogan and its neighbours’ way of life. ‘Not everyone understands how our tribal brothers live. We will build a big temple to the goddess on that hill, where the Gonds can pray to her.’

Across the crowd a frozen silence fell, followed by at least a thousand Gonds trying not to laugh. Korok, towards the back and well hidden, joined in the brief laughter that followed. The leader had made his biggest mistake of the day.

The Gonds did not worship a goddess of the hill. There was no idea of a statue or a painting or whatever it is that temples have. The hill was a goddess, but she had no physical form. For all anyone knew, it could have been a god too. The party volunteers who had in earlier times tried to make the Gonds worship at temples had probably given the wrong sort of idea to the leader. Whatever it was, his speech was dead in the water.

The leader himself did not realise this and talked at length about a lot of things, including selling tribal clothes outside. Korok hadn’t seen a hand-woven jacket or lower wear in his village and doubted anyone in Deogan knew anything about weaving. The cheap shirts and trousers of Balangir market were what sold here, so who would make these clothes, he did not know. He got bored and sneaked away.

A short while afterwards, the big leader left and the smaller ones, relieved they did not have to make awkward explanations to the Gonds, also swiftly departed. This time around, the television cameras did not find Korok, although when the footage was shown on news channels, he claimed to Anchita that he could be seen towards the back of the crowd.

The summer, for the villagers, turned into an endless series of days in a furnace. The ground hardened; the water level in Korok’s well fell so much he couldn’t see the water very well unless the sun shone directly on it. The crops wilted. One of his chickens died. The chickens stayed mostly in the shade, and pecked at the hard ground, but the earthworms had disappeared, burrowing into the soil.