A murder of crows circles around the denuded branches of a tree against a background of the grey sky, portrayed in spare strokes. The sketch, titled Crows, was made by Amitava Kumar in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 2019. The professor of English at Vassar College had been preparing to rush to class, when the crows, uncommon in those parts, had appeared out of nowhere and started wheeling and cawing outside the window of his house. He decided he could not go to campus without attempting a sketch. As a draughtsman, such moments are gold and he can’t resist translating them on paper. “I work quickly and try to catch a feeling or mood that keeps that particular moment alive,” Kumar tells me when we meet in Delhi.