poetry Archives

India’s Real Gully Boys & the Art of Protest Poetry: Rapping Up Election 2019

At a time when there is a trust deficit in India’s news media and chilling deaths of RTI activists and journalists are par for the course, the guardians of democracy appear to be India’s street rappers. Their fire rhymes are lighting up an election year. Meet the new breed of “citizen rappers”.

Nair Da July 28, 2016

Pop Culture

Chauvinism Has Met Its Match: Meet India’s Dissenting Women Artists

The last few months have seen the rise of poetry and parody as powerful tools of protest. And leading the revolution are artists such as Megha Rao and Saloni Gaur, popularly known as Nazma Aapi. The emergence of a clear voice by India’s women is a comforting reassurance that their perspective will be recorded.

Nair Da June 29, 2016

POV

How Writing Poetry Helped Me Fight the Paranoia That Came with the Pandemic

For so long, our anxieties had been at an all-time high. Some of us are clamouring for hospital beds while the rest of us are trying to safeguard our jobs. Earlier this month, I was infected with the coronavirus. Now, cooped up inside taking laboured breaths, my only respite was to write poetry.

Sahej Marwah May 18, 2016

First Person

My literature teacher: my fondest memory of school

Literature teachers are heavily romanticised in cinema, and for good reason. It takes a poetic perspective on life to escape the specificities of science and mathematics. Literature teachers help us find ourselves through stories and poetry when we’re growing up, and that’s what makes them so special.

Tanvi Khemani May 17, 2016

People

The Poet Who Belongs to Everyone: Finding Gulzar Wherever I Go

With Gulzar, the more you discover, the more you crave. Even when I didn’t know it, Gulzar was all around. That is how enmeshed his songs and lyrics are in our lives – and how our lives are reflected in them.

Shakun Saini May 7, 2016

POV

Independence Day: Is Poetry the Oppressed Soul’s Ticket to Freedom?

Freedom, to most of us, still dates back to the political independence of 1947. But like poetry, freedom too is defined by its individual interpretations. To be free would be to accept everyone’s claim to the same poem, and by extension, the same freedoms.

Manik Sharma April 26, 2016

Bollywood

Remembering Khayyam Saab: My Conversations with the Legendary Music Composer

I met Khayyam saab almost a decade ago for just a couple of hours. Yet, like most of his fans, I feel I have known him all my life. Khayyam saab, with his gentleness, reminded me of times when a lot of artists came together for a film and were happy to collaborate for the common cause – and that cause was music.

Bapu Deedwania April 13, 2016

First Person

I Am Fat Because My Body Houses All My Trauma

I was constantly being told that I needed to lose weight to look good, to find a boyfriend, to be accepted. But staying fat was probably my body’s rebellion against the society that so desperately wanted to change me. My body is a vault that stores all my secrets, all my traumas.

Manjiri Indurkar March 17, 2016

People

Why the Poet Mirza Ghalib is the Most Honest Metaphor for an India Divided Over CAA

While India’s early struggle for Independence hardly ever, if at all, reflected in Mirza Ghalib’s mainstream poetry, he recorded the events in his Persian diary Dastambu (bouquet) and the letters he wrote. He was dependent on the British for his income, but at the same time he was sympathetic toward his countrymen. In today’s times, he would be labelled a fence-sitter.

Shakun Saini March 4, 2016

People

What We Learn About Kashmir From Agha Shahid Ali’s Haunting Poetry

Even as the landscapes of America and India, New Delhi and Brazil, Uruguay and Chechnya jostle for space in Agha Shahid Ali's poetry, his words have always been rooted in Kashmir. A deep sense of loss echoes through the litany of references about his homeland, ideas that are as relevant today as they were back then.

Pranay Dewani March 1, 2016