Sanjay Basak interviewing the second-in-command in the Central Committee of the Maoists, Comrade Sonu....(top) Maoists...our guides in the jungles of Chhattisgarh Training camp..somewhere in Chhattisgarh (Pix by Ranjan Basu, photo editor, The Sunday Indian) Inside the Maoist World (The Sunday Indian) As the weak rays of the red sun struggled to break through the dense mist on a frosty wintermorning, we saw her for the first time. Clad in a green uniform, with a .303 rifle firmly gripped in her left hand, she was leaning against the door post. The comrade, a soldier in the band of dreaded Maoists, was supervising the preparation of our breakfast, “Poha” (a mixture of beaten rice and peanuts).” The day before, travelling in a Bolero, on that isolated stretch of Pakhanjur Road, notorious for the IED blasts carried out by the Maoists at regular intervals, we were heading for a village in the Kanker district of Chhattisgarh. Around 9 pm, after driving for nearly seven hours, racin...