Jhargram, April 22: Getting an answer out of Vilasi Singh is not easy. She likes to keep you guessing ? then looks up and laughs, dismissively.

When she does speak, she is ready to agree with anything. She is also high on mahua (a country brew).

In her village Dhangikusum, a remote tribal habitation about 50 km from Jhargram, most people are “pathorshilpi” (they make stone utensils).

Dhangikusum, locally called Dhaikusum, is a picturesque village set against the Tuardungri hill in the Dalma range on the Bengal-Jharkhand border. The hills are covered with sal, shegun, mahua and palash trees. The journey to the village is as beautiful and almost impossible.

There is no motorable road to Dhangikusum. There are paths up the hill leading to the village, widened a little lately for BSF vehicles that were here for the April 17 election. An SUV can just manage to move.

There is also a smell of danger, that of travelling through a forest with predators. The driver is wary, alert for “some noise”. There is no wildlife, though, in the sal forests ? the fear is of landmines.

A local man says that these are not automated devices; they explode only when the Maoists identify their target ? usually policemen ? and trigger one off.

Neither Vilasi nor any of her neighbours will utter a word about them. “Maobadi?” repeats Vilasi, wearing a sari that has more holes than cloth, when asked.

If that is pretence, the befuddlement about her age is not. “I am 35,” says the mother of four. When her neighbours suggest she is 45, Vilasi agrees.

Her eldest son, Phulchand Singh, works “somewhere”.

She, like the other villagers ? there are about 50 households ? makes utensils, mainly plates, out of the grey-black stone naturally available here. A stone plate sells for Rs 12. A family can make up to three plates a day.

Vilasi is ready to demonstrate how she adds the finishing touch to one ? it’s a woman’s job. The initial hard bit is done by the men.

Pointing at the quarry, which is about a 10-minute walk from the village, one of Vilasi’s neighbours says there are corners marked for every family.

How does a family make do with Rs 36 a day?

“Oi hoy (We manage),” Vilasi says. The others laugh, at the way she says it.

There is another livelihood: mahua. The villagers bottle mahua, made from the locally abundant flower of the same name, and sell it for Rs 10 a bottle.

When they run out of food, they often have mahua, high on nutrition. Sometimes children are also fed mahua.

Do the children go to school? “The school is about an hour’s walk. But our children go,” says one of the men.

The nearest health centre, an outdoor facility, is two hours’ walk. “We carry the patient on a bullock cart or on a khatiya. “Many die on the way,” says one man. Many also die of malaria.

There is no electricity here or in any of the villages nearby. There is a TV set, though. It runs on battery. The village’s young gather to watch cricket on DD at Ashwini’s house.

“We are so cut off we don’t think of migrating to any town, either,” he says.

What does the village eat? “Rice,” a villager says. “Just rice, sometimes,” he repeats.

“How can you ask what we eat? Can’t you see? We can’t even buy dal,” he says, suddenly angry. “Sometimes we drink only water. Then the well dries up.”

Then why vote? “This vote is like a parab (festival),” says Vilasi, smiling. “We have to go.”

But she could as well not go. “That’s also true (that the election will change nothing). Are you telling me not to vote? Then I won’t vote in the future,” she says, still smiling.

“And what about my money? I showed you how to make a plate.” As she walks off with Rs 20, one of her neighbours says she will get some more mahua.

Vilasi totters perilously ? between the Maoist she won’t acknowledge and the mahua that is her deliverance.