The featured image of this post has been sourced from The Fearless Collective.

वो चिनगारी सरकारी थी,
जो आग बनी है सीने में।

जंगल से, दरिया से, घर से-
सबसे बेघर जब कर डाला,
रोटी की, बेटी-बहनों की-
चिन्ता में पागल कर डाला,
अब मौत भी महँगी लगती है-
हम शाद नहीं है जीने में।
वो चिनगारी सरकारी थी,
जो आग बनी है सीने में।

लोहा-कोयला तुम रखते हो,
साहू का घर भर देते हो-
जन-गण-मन हमको कहते हो,
हमको बेघर कर देते हो,
कड़वी तो ज़हर की है प्याली,
पर आदत सी है पीने में,
वो चिनगारी सरकारी थी,
जो आग बनी है सीने में।

किस दिन फिर कोयल बोलेगी,
नदिया की लहरें गाएँगी,
महुआ की गंध से हो पागल,
कब बस्ती जश्न मनाएगी?
कब इश्क़ आबाद पुनः होगा,
खेतों में गिरे पसीने में?
वो चिनगारी सरकारी थी,
जो आग बनी है सीने में।

What would say is your favourite part about being who you are and doing what you do? Because you are one of the few people who actually get to do what they love.

I love the surprising places that poetry takes me. And I love the surprising people that I get introduced to through poetry. There are so many people I’ve met because they found poetry in their lives and I found poetry in mine, and somehow our lives have just connected. And these are folks I would never have otherwise been able to find, and I love that.

We couldn’t help but notice how it’s a majority of women who’ve attended this workshop. We were wondering if that’s common across the board for the other workshops you’ve conducted or in the spoken word poetry scene in general?

That’s so interesting. In the States I think it’s actually more male-dominated. There’s more male spoken word poets or at least (laughs) they are a louder presence, shall we say. But I think I’ve found that in Asia, I mean it isn’t a blanket statement, there are a lot of different countries in Asia (laughs), but in my experience here I have found that there are a lot of women who respond to this art form because it’s an opportunity to write ourselves out of the margin and reclaim narratives that maybe haven’t been written for us or people who have tried to write for us, instead of letting us speak for ourselves. I think there is something particularly powerful about that. So I am not surprised that there are a lot of women here. I think it’s awesome.

So it’s not just because women are more angsty?

(Laughs) It could be that too, but I think even that is powerful, right? The fact that instead of sitting at home with those feelings you are attempting to put them into words and share them with other people is a powerful choice. No matter what their feelings are.

You’ve been to India a couple of times before, right? What’s your favourite part about it?

India is a big place. (laughs) This is my first time in Bangalore, though, which I’m really excited about. So what’s my favorite part? Does food count? (laughs) I could probably eat Indian food every single day and be happy for my whole life. But my answer would be the colours. There’s so much color in India, that there isn’t anywhere else. And I yearn for it when I leave, and as soon as I get back here I’m thrilled to find it again. Simple things right, like cars. In the States, the cars are only black and grey and dark blue and maybe, red. And here there is every color on the streets around me. Obviously women’s dresses and Saris. That colour is so powerful in terms of altering my mood, I think. So I love that.

What is one wish you have for the coming year? For yourself, for the world, for anything?

Those are different categories. For the world, I really hope that the US does not fuck up this elections. (laughs) We all hope. That’s a big hope. I hope that this event, the NYPS, is just the beginning and I hope that it exposes to a lot of young artists to this art form, who haven’t maybe found it yet. Or who have and didn’t know that there is a community that existed for them. And I hope that when I return next year, or the year after that, that this event is even bigger and stronger with more diversity of voices, which I think there is definitely room for.

If you have one line only, which you can share with someone who is starting out as a writer, or someone who wants to write, what would it be?

Don’t be afraid of writing bad poems. You have to write bad poems in order to figure out how to write better poems. The worse thing that people do is that they write one bad poem and they go, uh-oh, I guess I’m not good at this. I should just quit. It doesn’t work that way. I write bad poems every day. So don’t be afraid of that.

Those who date nonconformists often wonder

How they must please their significant other.

But I’ve figured one of these types out:

Let me tell you how it’s to be gone about.

The first thing to do is to stay away from convention

(Fancy dinners are something you must never mention).

Do whatever you can that’s not the norm,

Find a way to not conform.

Don’t gift him on his birthday, because dates are an illusion.

Heck, find him a way to start a proletariat revolution.

Elaborate plans are mainstream; abandoning them is your goal

You must also work to demolish gender roles.

Take selfies and pull funny faces,

Do risky things in public places.

Take him to a talk on workers’ rights,

Debate the Manifesto throughout the night.

But don’t give him flowers, he doesn’t like those,

And don’t take his pictures, he doesn’t like to pose.

But listen and learn from his newest stories, please

And write him poems just like these.

Surprise him with amateur stand-up comedy shows

Take him to a part of town that no one knows

Find a cuisine that you’ve never tried before

And eat at roadside stalls some more.

But when you meet him, hold him close

Run your fingers over the bridge of his nose

You’re so much in love, you know it well

But you don’t have to say it: he can tell.

I’m lying back on my couch, making love while the nation burns

In a pixelated fire, conjured daily in news studios and fuelled by

The words of errant anchors; words that the nation doesn’t want to know

And would be better off silencing, really.

I shift beneath him and sigh, arch my back, my eyes shut:

While a woman loses face to blackness and pain

I voluntarily embrace the blindness that pleasure brings.

I listen not for the sounds of dissent, or the sounds of hatred and jingoism

Echoing down my street

But for the sounds of interruptions – was that a key rustling in my lock?

Are my roommates back? No, thank God –

Never mind that the water has been mostly cut off

And they could be in danger somewhere in this city

I wet my lips with desire.

He breathes down my neck, and his stubble prickles deliciously.

I believe the sweet nothings he whispers in my ear in the heat of the moment

It’s a collective disease of the nation, isn’t it? Believing too soon, I mean

But I pay no attention except to the slow-building ecstasy

And the release doesn’t clear my mind, but makes me want to

Snuggle closer into the web of lies that comforts me, stroking my hair.

As if I were a child and not an adult capable of political expression

Whose death could be of consequence, worthy of consideration.

He falls asleep on my arm, oblivious to my pain

Snoring while I struggle to extricate myself from under him

I finally feel his weight, pinning me down, rendering me unable to breathe

Yet I hesitate to wake him – I love him, after all

And he needs the rest, as all protectors do.

And so I suffer in silence for him.

Because the alternative would be waking him up.

The alternative would be watching his fair and handsome features

Arrange themselves into a disapproving frown

Or worse, a look of pain – ‘I thought you loved me.

Look at my mother, my sister – they laid down their lives so I could live

And you would not tolerate even a bit of pain for my comfort?’

I don’t want that conversation.

And to love him is my duty, regardless of whether he loves me back.

So I tire not of mindlessly repeating the words to old songs

Proclaiming undying love, and thinking of his mother and his sister

And their selfless love

And like a good girlfriend

And a good nationalist

I slather on the makeup to hide my bruises.

(Dedicated to the Boys’ Hostel)

From day to day, and time to time

I feel the thick and sticky grime

Upon my forehead, on my nose,

Between my fungalicious toes.

It slowly oozes whilst I sleep,

Into my skin pores it does seep.

It makes me smell both sweet and sour,

But I still do refuse to shower.

When rugby or cricket I play,

the sweat and mud upon me may

stick upon my neck and palms,

within my hairy underarms.

And then, from there, that rotting grime –

it makes my body smell sublime!

It stays there, stuck, for hours and hours,

But still I do neglect my showers.

And once a way, I am inclined,

within a bar to myself find.

Awaken when I do next noon,

A whiff I whiff that makes me swoon.

I stumble, and my head does hurt,

I wear a urine-soaked blue shirt.

But though caressed by puke and wine,

My showers I still do decline.

Then, one day, as I walked the street,

And filled it with my smell so sweet,

I heard the sound of scream and shout

And men began to run about.

A small old lady pulled a knife,

And stabbed me till she took my life.

Now bleeding out, though, here I lay,

I’ve still not showered to this day.