Aalaap

Abstract

This opening section conveys, in the form of a bilingual poem (in English and Hindustani), the intellectual and political aspirations and commitments of the book while also introducing the reader to its blended and multilingual genre. The poem registers protest through metaphors and materialities of hunger, theatre, and manual labor. The refrain, "translation, no italics" underscores the manner in which the translations are forever shifting and evolving as a part of ongoing journeys; they cannot be fixed and reduced to their italicized equivalents.