A discovery of India

This book, with its mixture of words and conflicts and cuisines, does a great job of it

A little more than halfway through this book is a poem titled, “Googling Soni Sori”, referring to the 44-year-old tribal activist from Chhattisgarh, accused of being a Naxalite activist. If you do search for her online, you are likely to find videos of Sori describing how she was tortured in prison and the appalling conditions inside Indian jails. “Who is responsible for my condition?” the third line of the poem demands. This line is repeated like a refrain towards the end of the poem. “I found you”, writes Bolger, “a two-minute clip / wild haired moaning / cuffed to a