They were trying to find the exit from the bowl — there was one, Kabir eventually located it, a low passage in the south wall that required ducking but that opened into the secondary ravine on the far side — when the voice came.
It came from above. From the top of the bowl's walls, where the rim of rock caught the last direct sun and someone was standing on it, visible now against the sky as a silhouette — the outline of a man, lean and still, looking down.
He spoke in Hindi. Not the city Hindi of Delhi or Mumbai — the older, more formal variant of rural Madhya Pradesh, with the rhythms and constructions of a language used for serious things rather than casual ones. Kabir translated in a low voice as the man spoke:
"He says: 'You came to see where they lived and how they hid. I showed you how they hid.'"
The figure above did not move. He was watching them with the patience of someone who has been watching things in this landscape for a lifetime.
"He says: 'My grandfather was in Man Singh's gang. Not a leader — a man who carried food and kept watch. His name was Bhagwan Das. The police records call him an associate. His own name is not in any book. When Man Singh died, Bhagwan Das went to the villages and worked land. But he taught his son what he knew. His son taught me.'"
