Sohan Singh lies on the dry grass padded floor of the tarpaulin covered trolley. He has finished his volunteer duty for the day and on the way back from the main stage at Singhu border protest site he had his lunch at the Haryana Kisan union’s langar. The food and the heat make him drowsy. The trolley at this time in the afternoon is no less than an oven, but the desert-cooler boys installed a few days back makes it bearable. The youngsters in the next trolley have converted theirs’ into an air-conditioned cabin. They won’t mind if he takes a nap there but after a life lived with and under the elements, he is not sure if he can take on the ACs, even though he is here to take on the mighty establishment.

Here. At the borders of Dilli. With fellow farmers from the country. To take on the mighty establishment. Sometimes he wonders.

He won’t be here if his wife’s cries of help had not been answered by entire village during the dark decade of Punjab. The village had marched to his tubewell where the police and CRPF had him tied and were beating him mercilessly. His legs were stretched apart, more than what he thought was humanly possible and his mouth was stuffed with mud to muffle his shrieks when the villagers arrived. Disappearing or eliminating or encountering him with so many witnesses would have been hard and so he survived. He has walked with a strange gait since that day.

He won’t be here if he wasn’t caught by Jordanians in his ‘donkey’ flight as he fled that Punjab and deported back to India. He was fleeing guns that pierced the silence of his land and his home and pierced many young bodies.

He won’t be here but for one Baldev Singh. It was that puny little Baldev Singh, the pakka-certified-comrade of his village, who first took him to a protest rally at the district headquarters. That time it was for compensation for crop failure due to a hailstorm. In the hot humid days that followed, he sat with the group at the entrance of the DC’s office and shouted slogans. He had doubted the whole thing that first time but sat along Baldev Singh. He only knew that one survived the system, the establishment somehow, not challenged it. But then it happened. The DC came out of office, with folded hands and announced a relief package. That was the day he stopped running from the establishment and its lathis and guns. That was the day he felt his heart beat a different beat for the first time. That was the day his love affair with people’s struggles started.

Here, amidst the gathering of kindred spirits and the hum of the desert-cooler, sleep finds him for a short while and he wakes up invigorated. He steps out of the trolley and dares the scorching sun with a yawn and a stretch.

As he walks towards the kitchen to find a cup of tea, he looks along the length of the protest site. As far as he can see in both directions the trolleys and tractors are lined up for miles, facing Dilli, challenging it. The thought adds a spring to his steps.