The poetry collection that gives context to modern conflict

The Essentials

• Egrets, While War is a hardback poetry collection exploring the intersections of human conflict, physical aging, and nature.
• Carrying an M.R.P. of ₹499 for 104 pages, it marks Tishani Doshi’s fifth verse collection under the HarperCollins India banner.
• The thematic focus on post-pandemic realities offers readers a vocabulary to process recent global ruptures rather than just consuming them as news.

The Pulse

Tishani Doshi’s fifth collection arrives through HarperCollins India‘s Fourth Estate and Perennial imprints, focusing squarely on survival in a post-Covid landscape. The book moves away from premeditated narrative structures, instead gathering poems written over several years that organically formed a cohesive collection. What exactly is this volume trying to address? It asks how individuals can bear witness to war and extinction while still locating everyday beauty.

The text is heavily populated with birds, functioning as both omens and messengers across its pages. Doshi examines the physical toll of aging, memory, and geopolitical massacres through these natural motifs. Praise from contemporaries like Amit Chaudhuri and Imtiaz Dharker positions the work as a historical document of our current era. It demands attention not through volume, but through deliberate observation of a planet on the brink.

The Breakdown

The 104-page hardback edition integrates the written word with visual elements, specifically featuring interior paintings by artist Veer Misra. The text navigates themes of masks, unmasking, and physical presence, drawing directly from mythologies including the Ramayana’s krauñca. The linguistic structure varies deliberately, shifting between the gentle cadence of birdsong and the urgent rhythm of battle drums. Doshi constructs a sensory vocabulary that relies on specific avian references, woodpeckers, lapwings, and egrets to anchor abstract concepts of exile and extinction in concrete, observable nature.

The Distinction

The primary differentiator of Egrets, While War is its structural reliance on avian taxonomy to map human conflict. Competing contemporary collections often separate ecological themes from political violence. This volume deliberately merges them, using species like golden orioles and grey-hooded crows as literal witnesses to famine and systemic wreckage. It anchors these vast geopolitical themes in physical sensation, a direct result of the author’s background in physical theatre and dance, moving away from purely abstract verse to ground trauma in the body.

The Snapshot

Feature	Detail
Title	Egrets, While War
Author	Tishani Doshi
Publisher	Fourth Estate & Perennial at HarperCollins India
Format	Hardcover
Genre	Poetry
M.R.P.	₹499
Retail Price	₹339.91 (32% savings)
Delivery	₹25 standard delivery
Availability	Available now

The Big Picture

Indian English poetry has seen a surge in eco-critical writing over the last five years, with publishers increasingly backing verse that tackles climate and conflict. While many authors explore the metaphysical, Doshi’s latest entry places her firmly in the space of documentary poetics. HarperCollins India publishing this under their premium Fourth Estate imprint signals a continued institutional investment in South Asian poetic voices, pushing them from niche academic reading into mainstream literary consumption.

The India Prospective

For the Indian reader, this collection offers a specific cultural resonance, invoking indigenous references like the Ramayana alongside global concerns. While carrying an M.R.P. of ₹499, online retail platforms currently list the hardback at ₹339.91 following a 32 percent saving, with a delivery fee of ₹25. It sits squarely within the standard budget for domestic hardcover literature, providing an accessible entry point for metropolitan readers looking to engage with award-winning domestic poetry without steep import costs.

The Inside Intel

Doshi spent fifteen years performing globally as a dancer with the Chandralekha company. This extensive background in physical theatre directly informs her writing process, positioning the human body not just as a thematic subject, but as the primary vehicle to explore gender, violence, and geopolitical power structures across her verses.

The Unboxed Truth

Unbox Daily HQ views this as a necessary acquisition for readers who find traditional geopolitical commentary too detached from human emotion. At a discounted price of ₹339.91 against its ₹499 M.R.P., this hardback costs less than a single weekend movie ticket at a Bengaluru multiplex, offering permanent shelf value and repeated reading in exchange. What sets this volume apart is not just its subject matter, but how Doshi uses her fifteen-year background in physical dance to make abstract concepts like famine, aging, and extinction feel physically immediate on the page, bridging the gap between global trauma and individual sensation.

Best for: A literary enthusiast who wants to process global anxieties through art rather than rolling news feeds.

Who Is This For: Perfect for 30 to 55-year-old readers in metropolitan India who actively track South Asian literary fiction and poetry.

The Checkout

HarperCollins India

The Source

HarperCollins India

The Query