World Poetry Day: Indian poets and readers look homewards for deeper connect

Now they are discovering literary giantsand also the newer generation of poets thanks to the many literary and poetry festivals being held across the country, the 53-year-old said.He added that it was also true for readers finding poets in other languages like Urdu, Punjabi, Malayalam and Bengali.You would meet so many young people who are reading and talking about poets like Ahmad Faraz, Ghalib, Meer or Faiz.

In an era of snap reels, memes and fleeting attention spans, the world of rhyme and verse echoing love and longing, politics and protest is finding new readers - and writers -- every day. Not only are the young taking to poetry, they are also finding new avenues to share their work.

Once confined to books or performed on stage, the many forms of poetry are no longer limited to the stage as poets string it, sing it, and share it on social media to an ever-increasing audience of poetry lovers.

That many poetry lovers are looking homewards for words that connect at a deeper level and are steeped in the Indian context has marked a shift.

Like it is for Pathikrit Dutta.

The world described by English poets such as Robert Frost, John Keats, W B Yeats, or William Wordsworth in his textbooks didn't connect much with the world around the school going Dutta in the 1990s.

At home, the world of poetry expanded for him with the timeless Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore as well as Sukumar Roy, Utpal Kumar Basu and Binoy Majumdar who wrote of a world outside his door in a language he spoke inside it.

"Anything in the mother tongue is always preferable. The feel of it, that I can actually relate to Bengali poetry puts it ahead of western poetry. Moreover, one needs to know western classical period and the Bible. Yet the real feel is missing," Dutta told PTI on World Poetry Day on Thursday.

The 36-year-old media professional, however, added that any poetry that "rings your emotions is great".

In recent years, poets, including Sudeep Sen, C P Surendran and Meena Kandasamy in English, Vijila Chirappad, S Joseph, and Vidyamol Pramadam in Malayalam, and Ashok Chakradhar, Geet Chaturvedi and Ashok Vajpeyi in Hindi have been writing on the themes of caste, gender identity, feminism, Dalit struggle, political satire, and on issues of ecology and climate change.

The collective pen of a younger generation of Indian poets has also been writing about unrequited love, emotions that are hard to express but also about poverty, political discourse, Dalit and gender issues of the day.

According to Kochi-based Malayalam poet Aleena, "the need of people to have their pains explained and validated" attracts them towards poetry.

The 27-year-old writes on history, local legends and horror themes with a Dalit feminist perspective. Her debut book, "Silk Route", which received Kerala Sahitya Akademi's Kanakashree Award, is a collection of 91 poems in Malayalam.

Echoing Aleena's thoughts, Gurugram-based Neha Roda, a happiness coach by profession and a poet by choice, took to poetry to express the intricate human emotions that are often lost in translation.

The 37-year-old grew up in a household where her parents and grandparents listened to ghazals by the likes of Jagjit Singh and Mehdi Hassan, who often sang to the words of Urdu poets Ahmad Faraz, Ghalib, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Parveen Shakir and Bahadur Shah Zafar.

"I always felt really happy when a couplet would express exactly how I was feeling. That attracted me towards shayari and poetry. I am an emotional person with too many thoughts, so poetry comes to me when I am feeling too much and can't share it with anyone," Roda said.

Writer and communication professional Bishnu Singh (name changed) credits the surge in literary and poetry festivals and social media for the discovery and rediscovery of old and new poets across languages by a young readership.

He said that even though India has had a rich poetry tradition with "literary giants" like Jayanta Mahapatra, Agha Shahid Ali, and Vikram Seth, reading and appreciating them may have been limited to "a certain section of society" or students of poetry.

"We now have people in their 20s or 30s, who read poetry in school and then there was a long disconnect, unless they studied poetry in college. Now they are discovering literary giants…and also the newer generation of poets thanks to the many literary and poetry festivals being held across the country," the 53-year-old said.

He added that it was also true for readers finding poets in other languages like Urdu, Punjabi, Malayalam and Bengali.

"You would meet so many young people who are reading and talking about poets like Ahmad Faraz, Ghalib, Meer or Faiz. It is equally true for regional languages, the poets have always been there but it's good that they are being discovered by youngsters today through social media or lit fests," Singh added.

Gurugram's DLF CyberHub organised one such event last week - 'Jashn-e-Sukhan' - where young poetry enthusiasts, including Roda, along with a number of young poets like Prabhnoor Singh, Kirti Vats, and Indra Narayan Das participated.

While Roda has over 40,000 followers on Instagram, Prabhnoor Singh commands a loyal base of nearly 20,000 poetry lovers on the social media site. Roda noted that since it is the age of social media the ability to "monetise our passions" has added to the inspiration to write.

Performing poetry at events or social media might be taking the literary form to newer audiences, but poet Sudeep Sen is of the view that it cannot be compared with written-word poetry.

"Performance and stand-up poetry cannot be compared with written-word poetry -- the former has an instant connect with a live audience, and the latter has a slow-churning deeper effect on the human psyche,'' Sen told PTI.

The 60-year-old English poet recently edited an international anthology, ''Converse: Contemporary English Poetry by Indians'', that includes works in English by poets from India and from the Indian diaspora.

While festivals like Jashn-e-Sukhan, Jashn-e-Rekhta and Jashn-e-Adab are dedicated to poetry, literary and cultural events like Jaipur Literature Festival, Sahitya Akademi's Sahityotsav have been inviting poets for discussions and reading.

Sen, however, is of the belief that social media popularity of a poet ''does not necessarily reflect the quality of poetry''.

"It takes decades of apprenticeship and riyaaz to become a good poet, and definitely not measured by many likes or hits you have on your socials. Ultimately good poetry is ageless and universal -- both for the connoisseurs and the general reader,'' he said. (March 21 is celebrated as World Poetry Day).

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)