Protest Code

Scribbled on the back of a landing, positioned so that you see them walking down the stairs while leaving , are two scraps of text in Hindi and Urdu. Some may try to read the Hindi, but it is gibberish, empty of meaning (). Those who read Urdu, however, realise the Devanagari is backwards,) that the words are revealed: the first two lines of Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s , currently one of the touchstone anthems for anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protesters. We see, argue the words, if we know how to look beyond what’s easy and obvious.