They were now driving through an area of undulating ground covered with scrub and rocky outcrops. It was getting warmer. The occasional village looked even more barren and destitute than those closer to the town. At one point they stopped and asked the villagers if they had seen the others in their party go past.
‘Yes, Sahib,’ said one villager, a middle-aged man with white hair, who was awestruck by the fact that the SDO had appeared in their midst. He told them that a jeep and a car had gone past earlier.
‘Has there been any problem with wolves in this village?’ asked Sandeep.
The villager shook his head from left to right. ‘Yes, indeed, Sahib,’ he said, his face taut with the memory. ‘Bacchan Singh’s son was sleeping outside with his mother and a wolf grabbed him and took him off. We chased him with lanterns and sticks, but it was too late. We found the boy’s body the next day in a field. It was partly eaten. Sahib, please save us from this menace, you are our mother and father. These days we can neither sleep indoors for the heat nor outside for fear.’
‘When did this happen?’ asked the SDO sympathetically.
‘Last month, Sahib, at the new moon.’
‘One day after the new moon,’ corrected another villager.
When they got back into the car, Sandeep said nothing more than: ‘Very sad, very sad. Sad for the villagers, sad for the wolves.’
‘Sad for the wolves?’ said Maan, startled.
‘Well, you know,’ said Sandeep, taking off his sola topi and mopping his forehead, ‘though this area looks very bare now, there used to be a lot of forest cover once — sal, mahua and so on — and it supported a lot of small wildlife that the wolves preyed on. But there has been so much logging, first in the War because it was needed, and then, illegally, after the War — often, I’m afraid, with the connivance of the forest officers themselves — and also of the villagers, who want more land for their fields. Anyway, the wolves have been crowded into smaller and smaller areas and have become more and more desperate. The summer’s the worst time because everything is dry and there’s nothing to eat — hardly any land-crabs or frogs or other small animals. That’s when they are driven by hunger to attack the villagers’ goats — and when they can’t get at the goats, they attack the villagers’ children.’
‘Can you reafforest any areas?’
‘Well, they would have to be areas that aren’t used for cultivation. Politically and, well, humanly, anything else isn’t possible. I can imagine being flayed alive by the likes of Jha if I even suggested it. But anyway, that’s a long-term policy, and what the villagers need is that the terror stop now.’
Suddenly he tapped his driver on the shoulder. The startled man turned his neck around and looked at the SDO questioningly, while continuing to drive full speed ahead.
‘Will you stop blaring that horn?’ said the SDO in Hindi. Then, after a pause, he took up his conversation with Maan:
‘The statistics, you know, are quite appalling. For the last seven years, each summer — from about February to June, when the monsoon breaks — there have been over a dozen kills and about the same number of mauls in an area of about thirty villages. For years officials have kept writing reports and referring and deferring and inferring and talking round and round in circles about what to do: paper solutions for the most part. Occasionally they’ve tied up a few goats outside the village of the latest victim in the hope that this will somehow solve things. But—’ He shrugged his shoulders, frowned and sighed. Maan thought that his weak chin made him look rather grumpy.
‘Anyway,’ continued Sandeep, ‘I felt that this year something practical just had to be done about it. Luckily my DM agreed and helped rope in the police at the district level and so on. They have a couple of good shots, not just with pistols but with rifles. A week ago we learned that a pack of man-eaters was operating in this area and — ah, there they are!’ he said, pointing to a tree near an old and now deserted serai — a resting place for travellers — which stood by the side of the road a furlong or so ahead. A jeep and a car were parked underneath the tree, and a large number of people were moving around nearby, many of them local villagers. The SDO’s jeep roared up and screeched to a halt, enveloping everyone in a haze of dust.
Although the SDO was the least expert among the gathered officials and the least capable of organizing the task at hand, Maan noticed that everyone insisted on deferring to him, and sought his opinion even when he had none to give. Eventually, in polite exasperation, Sandeep said:
‘I do not want to waste any more time in talk. The beaters and hired marksmen, you say, are at the site itself — near the ravine. That’s good. However, you’—he indicated the two Forest Department officials, their five helpers, the Inspector, the two crack police shots and the policemen—‘have been here for an hour, waiting, and we have been here for half an hour, talking. We should have coordinated our arrival better, but never mind. Let us not waste further time. It is getting hotter by the minute. Mr Prashant, you say you have drawn up the plans with great care after examining the site for the beat three days ago. Well, please do not reiterate them and ask for my approval of every detail. I accept your plan. Now you tell us where to go, and we will obey you. Imagine that you are the DM himself.’
Mr Prashant, the Forest Officer, looked appalled at the thought, as if Sandeep had made a tasteless joke about God. ‘Now, let’s go ahead — and kill the killers,’ continued Sandeep, almost managing to look fierce.
10.5
The jeeps and car turned off the main road on to a dirt track, leaving the villagers behind. Another village went by, and then there was open countryside: the same scrub and outcrops as before, interspersed with pieces of arable land and the occasional large tree — a flame-of-the-forest, a mahua, or a banyan. The rocks had stored heat over the months, and the landscape began to shimmer in the morning sun. It was about eight thirty and it was already hot. Maan yawned and stretched as the jeep bounced on. He was happy.
The vehicles stopped near a great banyan tree on the bank of a dried stream. There the beaters, armed with lathis and spears, two of them with rudimentary drums strapped across their bodies, sat and chewed tobacco, sang tunelessly, laughed, talked about the two rupees that they would be getting for their morning’s work, and asked several times for a re-explanation of Mr Prashant’s instructions. They were a mixed bunch in both shape and age, but all of them were eager to be of use and hopeful that they would flush out a man-eating wolf or two. Over the last week the suspected wolves had been sighted on a number of occasions — once as many as four of them together — and had sought escape in the long ravine into which the dry creek ran. This was where they would most likely be hiding. The beaters finally set out across the fields and ridges in the direction of the lower end of the ravine and disappeared into the distance as they trudged along. They would later move forward through the ravine and try to flush the quarry out at the other end.
The jeeps now headed dustily towards the upper end of the ravine. Yet at this upper end — as at the lower end — there were a number of outlets other than the main one, and each exit had to be guarded. The marksmen were distributed at these various exits. Beyond the exits lay rough open land for a couple of hundred yards, and beyond that a patchwork of dry fields and areas of woodland.