The posting came on a Tuesday, which was the day her supervisor Mr. Pandey held his weekly review meetings and was therefore in an unusually administrative mood, the mood of a man who had paperwork to distribute and wanted it distributed efficiently.
"Nandgaon," he said, pushing a manila folder across the desk toward her. "Chhattisgarh. Remote. You'll take the overnight train to Raipur and then arrange onward transport. The district collector's office should be able to help with that."
Meera Saxena picked up the folder. She was thirty-four, had been with the Census Directorate for eight years, and had been to enough remote postings that the word "remote" had lost most of its meaning. Remote meant no network. Remote meant bad roads. Remote meant the kind of chai that tasted like it had been boiling since last Tuesday. She had a system for remote postings: extra batteries, a paper notebook as backup, good boots, and the specific psychological adjustment of a person who expected nothing from a place and was therefore occasionally surprised.
