The poems in this collection mark the latter half of 2019 and the first few months of 2020 before the onset of the Corona pandemic. Since then, the ruling dispensation has used the cover of this period to further tighten its narrative, doubling down on protestors and those who have been attacked during the pogrom, casting them as miscreants and agitators. The issue is complex, and this is not an analytical piece of reportage. Rather, it is a collection of songs whose tune echo my incomprehension, my questions, my hope.
These poems are an attempt at communication.
15th July, 2020
Ajinkya
In Transit is a compilation that consists of an essay and 9 poems I wrote between March 14th and May 14th, 2020. This very short anthology is an archive of impressions that have served as a tool for comprehension, a map to navigate the absurdity and chaos brought on by the virus and its consequences.
"...do you know what it is to surrender
to the expanse? to choose the companionship
of the road? to claim the half-bitten moon as a mother,
and lie beside the corpse of the wind under a torn headscarf?..."
excerpted from "The Travelers" (from the collection)
May 15th, 2020
Ajinkya