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picture The first halt is after 40 minutes. There is nothing much to record, except that I had a narrow escape from snake-bite. Because it didn't want the bother of turning around and biting me, the reptile exhibited amazing speed in disappearing into the underbrush seconds before I blundered on it. The incident left me a little shaken, and with my raised right foot frozen in mid-air, but it taught me to watch where I was stepping.

R, soon as we stop, puts a jungle flower to minute inspection and gets stung by a wasp. He becomes a bit hyper about it.

"Kuch hoga (Will something happen to me)?" he asks anxiously.

The Naxals find this very amusing. G tries to console him, but Vishwanath chooses the moment to tell him about other poisonous creatures of the jungle that can prove deadly. R looks more worried.

The 10-minute rest over, we line up. This time the guerrillas lead us across a couple of open fields -- an exercise they avoid as a rule -- which cuts our distance by more than 30 minutes.

pictureThe next halt is almost an hour later, just beyond a green field. In the corner nearest to us, I can see a villager grazing a calf. Both are very matter-of-fact, completely unimpressed by our little procession. When Ganesh approaches him for water, the villager listens, nods and walks away. Is it fear that prompts this unquestioned obedience? I don't think so.

As the guerrillas make tea, the conversation shifts to the Naxal movement in Bihar. Vishwanath talks about the Maoist Communist Party. The fight there is still in the initial stages, he says.

"They don't have enough weapons, and no training. One of our people had gone there recently to train them. We sent them an AK and a few SLRs from here," he reveals, "In DK, we have passed that stage. Here (unlike Bihar where the biggest enemy of the movement is the landlords) the State is our biggest enemy.''

H, meanwhile, is going about his photography. He has made good use of the IV tube that Vishwanath provided him earlier -- the extra lens he has with him is now slung on his shoulder, tied to the end of the tube.

R, I can see from the corner of my eye, is in deep conversation with a couple of guerrillas. A little later he comes hurrying to where G and I are standing. "You know what?" he says, breathlessly, "These people take a bath only in 15 days!"

"When it is a question of survival, as it is the case with them, then other things take precedence," G tells him. However, that doesn't stop any of us from contemplating the possibility of a bath this evening.

G and I talk about the risk we are running and the chances we would have if we ran into an encounter. The cops, we have learnt from the Naxals, usually retreat only after their guns are empty. Yet, none of us seem to be overtly apprehensive. We arrive at the conclusion that it is because though all of us know the risks theoretically, it hasn't really sunk in. That would happen only when we are fired upon.

We reach the periphery of Karan's camp at around 1700 hours. Two scouts are immediately despatched to let them know about our arrival. We set to wait their return.

pictureIt's while I am trying to escape from under the weight of my rucksack that its straps break. Not to worry, Vishwanath assures me, it will be fixed. On his request, one of his colleagues removes a thick needle, thread and a piece of canvas. By the time he finishes, it is stronger than before.

An hour passes. There is no sign of our scouts yet. The guerrillas are squatting, oblivious to the formation of mosquitoes that are attacking us, lazily fanning them away with leaves. I try the same technique, but the squadron that is concentrating on me is more ferocious than the rest. Mere fanning produces no effect. I am forced to jump up and keep pacing.

The scouts return at 1845 hours. We meet our first woman guerrilla 10 minutes after that. Two of them are waiting just where we enter the camp, with wide smiles and outstretched hands. Both are short and stocky, their hair in a boy-cut.

"Lal salaam," they say, raising their right fists in air. I am a bit confused at how to respond, but decide the best course is imitation.

"Lal salaam," I respond, feebly raising my fist.

The camp is set in a natural clearing, surrounded by trees on all sides. Till you are actually in, you don't realise there is anything here. The guerrillas are all lined up. They greet us with Lal salaams and wide smiles. As we move past returning their greeting, they introduce themselves: Murli, Saraswati, Indira... Karan.

Karan, the man whom I have been hearing about since I first contacted the PW, is 33, of medium height, dark and wiry. Originally from Andhra Pradesh, he has been with the movement for the last 15 years. Before coming to DK about two-and-a-half years ago, he had been active in Telengana and Karnataka.

Now he leads us to a plastic sheet spread on the ground.

"Tired?" he asks in Hindi, as his comrades offer us water, "Sorry I couldn't come down to meet you. I was not well. Had to take an IV before I could move down till here."

pictureHe tells us there are two squads with us now. They had arrived at the site only about 45 minutes earlier. Two women members are starting a fire near where we are sitting to smoke green leaves and bushes -- this is the outlaws' sole protection against mosquitoes.

"What are your plans?" Karan asks, "How long can you stay?"

Arrangements have been made for us to stay till August 3. I tell him I would like to stay as long as possible, but H, G and R are all for starting back on July 28, immediately after the Martyr's Day meeting.

Karan says there won't be much of a celebration this time. In the light of the huge meetings the PW had conducted in previous years, deep in the forest, the police would be out in force. This year the repression (by Naxal definition, any police action against them is repression) is more than usual.

"You must cover us well," he tells R, trying to convince him to stay back longer, "The local papers only publish the police version. Till now, every news item about us has been fed to them. You must tell the people the truth. Idharka log aap ka paper zyada padthe hain (The people of this area mostly read your paper)."

It has grown dark now, and one of the guerrillas brings a candle. Next to us, three women are sitting, listening to our conversation. Behind Karan there is another outlaw, Arun, who is from West Bengal. Karan alternates between Hindi and English, mostly English, which he speaks haltingly, each word segregated by a slight pause, his accent heavily South Indian. I am sure none of the outlaws around us, except Arun, follow the conversation. Their presence appears more as Karan's bodyguards than anything else.

Karan is telling us about the increased police repression in the area. According to him, atrocities on villagers have been rising in the past couple of years. He tells us about two notorious police inspectors, Pandu and Trivedi, who 'unleashed a reign of terror.' Both are alleged to have shot many tribals in cold blood. The Naxals had their revenge on Pandu when they killed him in an ambush. But Trivedi escaped as he was transferred out of the region.

R interrupts to ask him how the villagers react when policemen are killed.

"They celebrate the occasion," Karan replies, "For instance, when Pandu was killed, there was a lot of celebration in the villages. They congratulated us wherever we went."

I ask him about Union Home Minister L K Advani's all-out move to eliminate the PWG.

"The first enemy of communism is communalism," Karan says, "The BJP and RSS are reactionary fascist forces. Now that they are in power, it is only natural for them to start another round of repression. We expected it. We will fight them. By increasing our mass base, by consolidating our party, by extending it, and using guerrilla war techniques, we will fight them."

We soon exhaust the immediate topics, mainly because all of us are tired and hungry. I lie back, waiting for food. A little later, there's a message for Karan. The sentry has seen a jeep in the village. Cops? Karan calls for Vishwanath, instructs him in Gondi (the dialect of the local tribes), and sends him to investigate. We wait apprehensively. Will we have to run for it? That too on an empty stomach?

Page design: Dominic Xavier

   DAY 3: Women make better guerrillas than men
   DAY 4: We will meet again. If I live...
 

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