There was this whole thinking process Vaibhav went through at that particular moment. It was just a passing minute, but for Vaibhav, the earth did more than just rotate at that instance. Vaibhav slowly brought his hands together while shivering inside. He smiled as looked around at all the people with his hands folded in a namaste.

"You need to go there!" Sattu pointed Vaibhav the chair line in the front. He walked ahead ahead and held up the ribbon for Vaibhav to slip under.

"I cannot go there!" Vaibhav exclaimed as he swung down to the other side of the barricade. He never thought he would feel uncomfortable seeing more people dressed in suits rather than seeing people dressed traditionally.

"No, I can't go there. You have to mingle!" Sattu put the ribbon down and walked away.

There is this inkling that drives a person to believe that a new place will somehow be above the natural hierarchy, everyone will be nice and good, treated equally. In the end, everyone differentiates ideals from reality, either by choice or being forced to do so. Some people live in a town and some run it. Vaibhav walked slowly towards the gathering curling his hands into fists, irritated for absolutely no reason.

The anchor took a break, as he came up and shook Vaibhav's hand.

"Nice to meet you, Dr. Roy. A friend of mine studied with you at Calcutta University."

Vaibhav smiled and nodded his head, ignoring every word, because he could see the landlady behind the anchor. She seemed to have just arrived at the fair, donning a tea length dress. Vaibhav hated to feel that this was to the moment he was to be introduced to the elite of the town and thus to the town itself.

"You made it! Sattu treat you okay," she appeared to be the most civilised person in the crowd, laughing with her mouth closed and locking her palms in the front.

"Aren't you gonna introduce us?" asked a middle-aged man, sitting on a chair behind Shefali, smiling with the people seated beside him as he spoke, "I suppose Nandan didn't make it today, again!?"

"He is your boss!" Shefali said twisting her lips into a smile, turning from the middle-aged man towards Vaibhav, "This is Inspector Bimal Hansda of the Naxalbari police force!"

Vaibhav choked all of a sudden and then immediately switched to a faint smile. He extended a namaste to Bimal.

"Hey, is this the doctor?" a man stood up stammering, from the chair few paces ahead in the row after Bimal. He could not decide what was important, the betel leaf in his mouth or talking to the guests.

"Doctor," the inspector took lead, "this is my boss! Associate MLA of this constituency, Surojit Samanta."

"So, the career encounters catch up to you!", Surojit laughed aloud. Vaibhav was still unclear on which part of that statement was a joke.

The inspector smiled quietly and turned to Vaibhav "So, why is Writers' is punishing me. I have no idea what I did wrong."

"I don't understand.", Vaibhav answered to Bimal with what he thought to be a valid question.

"He is asking if you are here to 'cover up' incarnate of the government!", Surojit suddenly started speaking clearly, "when Bimal here wanted to follow rules, they passed the Armed Forces special powers act. Officers under his command disobeyed him. Shoot to kill! Now, the media is catching up, so the state cabinet sends you to check if he's staging fake encounters!?"

"Aren't you the government?", Vaibhav said softly.

"No, I'm a people's representative. I'm strongly against this experiment!", Surojit explained spitting out the betel leaf in his mouth.

"Yeah, they'll make a Naxalite stand trial in the Siliguri High court! Judicial proceedings are suddenly viable with a political conflict going on! Morever they need an experimental investigation procedure to make their point!", the inspector said rudely.

"The world doesn't follow a simple logic anymore. People argue with people, they don't argue with forensics, with science!", Vaibhav maintained his demeanor.

"Accountability and transparency", Surojit was proud to know the terms, "more like the cabinet got bored of the bad PR hearing license to kill...."

"...Police trying hard to keep land grabbing in check and getting murdered in the process!", Bimal didn't try to hide his anger.

"We all pay the price for the lady's blindness.", Shefali chimed in.

"Well, people have faith in their ruler. It's only logical that they get their faith rewarded from time to time. At least that's what Karl Marx thought when he introduced communism", Vaibhav said in a baritone voice.

"Yes and now years later Charu Majumder suddenly thought time was ripe to illegally seize land and start harvesting on them, helping majority of the working class rob....", Bimal was not going to back down.

"Struggle", Vaibhav stressed the word, "struggle of the vast majority of the working class against a system hell-bent on exploiting them!", he spoke rather loudly.

"You are not a communist are you?", Surojit was being very serious.

"No!", Vaibhav said confidently.

"God forbid, We do not need another communist giving away resources to the people!", said Surojit, making sure he sounded sarcastic this time.

Bimal was about to say something more when the speaker boomed.

The anchor cleared his throat, "Now as every year, this year too she offered in puja to Lord Shiva on behalf of all of us and with the Lord's blessing, she is going to perform here tonight, hope you all enjoy...."