The train was late, which was standard. The district collector's office in Raipur was helpful in the manner of offices that have been asked to assist with something they find mildly puzzling, which expressed itself as a careful over-explanation of the road conditions and a jeep driver named Sukhram who had the quiet, internally-directed concentration of a man who did not speak unless spoken to and considered this a virtue.
She had arrived in Raipur on Friday morning and spent the day at the collector's office reviewing the district land records, which told her very little that the folder hadn't already told her, except for one thing: the district revenue records showed Nandgaon's land as government-vested since 1948, which meant the evacuation had been administered formally — land transferred to the state, original ownership records sealed. This was not unusual for settlements evacuated after Partition-era incidents. What was slightly unusual was that the records showed no subsequent use of the land — no forest department activity, no government project, no road construction or survey. The land, for seventy-seven years, had simply been on the books as government-vested and apparently untouched.
