His poems speak of rage, but also of hope; of despair, but also of love. The verses, some short, some longer—80 in all—address old questions, while offering new perspectives. The subjects are all too familiar: Shaheen Bagh, the farmers’ protest, and the arrests of individuals like Umar Khalid, Father Stan Swamy and Varavara Rao. But with each poem, Hamraaz (Urdu for “confidante”), as the poet prefers to be called, makes the reader wonder, “Why didn’t I think of it this way?”

“It was an impulsive decision, [taken] at a time when I wasn’t sure anyone would actually read anything I wrote,” the poet says about his pen name over an email interaction, “A close friend suggested it. I liked that the name was clearly a pen name, but it also signalled a kind of intimacy with the reader. It can also be seen as tongue in cheek. My alter egos don’t like to take themselves too seriously.” It would’ve been braver to not be anonymous, Hamraaz concedes, “But then I couldn’t have written these poems.”