BOOK REVIEW - Akhil Katyal, How Many Countries does the Indus Cross, (The (Great) Indian Poetry Collective, 2019)

The political residue embedded in the consciousness of the people who are divided by the political lines nonetheless shares an undivided common history find a voice in the poems of Akhil Katyal. The poems, in Akhil Katyal’s How Many Countries does the Indus Cross, are infused with the politics of bygone days of the Indian subcontinent which unfailingly defines our present-day politics and dictates the lives of the people. With an engaging title, the poet critiques absurdly painted borders of the surfaced nations on the map of the Indian subcontinent in the twentieth century. Every country that Indus passes through has been witnessing ongoing unrest. These countries have been engulfed in territorial conflicts, regions in the course of Indus have witnessed suffering and fought a politicized dispute over the water of Indus. In spite of all, as poet shows, irrevocable Indus, ironical as it seems, overruns the divided lands unifying the people in their experiences. Katyal’s poems, interspersed with a thematic plethora, engage the readers with the stylistic appeal.