Spending months at the Shaheen Bagh protest site, she captured more than what met the eye — seamlessly going beyond the visual of hundreds of burqa-clad women sitting in protest. There were anecdotes from their lives, moments beyond the agitation, humour, the never-ending Kafkaesque trials, small hopes, and the tiny details of a big revolution in the making. Perhaps that is what made ’Shaheen Bagh: A Graphic Recollection’ (Yoda Press) so alive, no, human.

In her latest, ’Uprooted’ (Westland), Mehrotra enters the forest — both physical and metaphorical. The ‘method writer’, who has long been interested in the ongoing forest rights struggles, spent months living with the Van Gujjar community — not with a project in mind. Much like her previous work, ‘Uprooted’ grew from notes, conversations

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