Sitanshu entered the epic through the oar Odysseus must carry beyond Ithaca, inland, until someone who has never seen the sea mistakes it for a winnowing fan. The oar remembers the sea. The collection’s achievement lies not merely in transplanting a Greek hero into Gujarati poetry, or in displaying the cosmopolitan range of a modern Indian poet. “Surrealism” gives the poems a recognisable European genealogy before their Gujarati language has had the chance to disturb us. The oar has already left the sea before Odysseus begins carrying it inland.