By Inderjit Badhwar
It had been more than a year since I had heard from my friend, the world-renowned artist and sculptor, Jatin Das. Last week when my iphone flashed his name, I answered not without tinges of trepidation and guilt—I was nervous about his health in these Covid times, and guilty that I had not called him for so long.
He was fine, thank God! In fact, more than fine and positively bubbling with his trademark chatter. We exchanged our lockdown experiences and home confinement blues. I told him about how India Legal had regularly covered a wide gamut of legal issues affecting victims of the pandemic, especially the countless million hungry migrants trudging home on foot for hundreds of miles.
Jatin has been chronicling the miseries, trials and tribulations of these hapless men, women and children as only an artist can—on his drawing paper and canvases. Strictly speaking, this is not a typical India Legal story, but I reproduce here Jatin’s letter to me (read below) along with never-seen-before sketches which I am sure will serve as powerfully to lawyers and judges as legal briefs to document the grief and hardships of India’s wretched of the earth. As and when the lockdown eases, Jatin plans to exhibit these images (above) in galleries across the world.
Edit-Letter