In a new, compelling poetry collection, What the Bird Tattoo Hides, Bohm arrives in rural India in 1968, "seeking truth's taste”. His stories about many of its personalities, including outsiders and their hidden histories, reveal the daily lives of haughty Sundara, labour leader Dev Raj, Meeda Mama, and Dada who likes "a few rums / before supper”, as they work, argue, celebrate, and raise their children, struggling to better their lives and sometimes taking up arms to fight for justice.