Date 20-08-2016
Location Atta Galatta, Kormangala, Bengaluru, India
Event description The LPB August event will be held on the 20th at 5pm. Participants are welcome to read poems of their choice. No specific theme has been assigned to this event.
Event summary
This was the longest meetup, of all the LPB monthly meetup, I have participated so far. We had 4 breaks in the middle of every 10 recitation. At the end, we also had to move out of Atta Galatta to vacate space for an upcoming event. You can imagine the intensity of artistic expressions 🙂 yourself. Anyway, let me get on to the summary parts.
There were many first timers today at Let Poetry Be. They recited in multiple languages. Everyone gave a huge round of applause to the first timers.
Event started with the recitation by Darsana Mohan. She shared her poems with title, ‘Kappi’, ‘A love letter to Ron Weasley’.
Sanjana Nagesh poem was dedicated to a person, who has fallen in love with her own hallucination. Her other poem was about breaking up at 3 Am in morning. Apurv Mittal recited his ‘river’,‘Broken Umbrella’. Jasleen Rana recited ‘Down the memory lane’. Nitisha Tomar recited poems on the theme of ‘monsoon’, ‘bright wounds’ etc. Reema D’Souza recited ‘Journey called life’, ‘I am writing a poem’.
Suja Nandhini recited using a poetic form called ‘acoustic’. Title of her first poem was guessed by audience as ‘Let Poetry Be’. Her second poem was in Tamil with the title ‘Journey to the end’. Maitrayee Chavan recited 2 poems. One is ‘my kind of perfect’ and another one was ‘T-shirt’. Joanna Kurian recited ‘Art of mine’ and ‘I cry’. Zain Sheriff recited a poem based on his dream. His other poems were ‘my neighbours dog’ and ‘online friends’.
Many first timers recited in Hindi/Urdu. Renu Jain recited 3 poems. In her first poem, she compared parents with curtains. Her second poem had title, यू ही अचानक . And, the last one was focused on Women. Rahul Anand recited a poem with title टूटे रिश्ते. Sariq Iqbal recited माँ. It highlighted the situation of women in tribal dominated regions of India. Kartikay Khetarpal also recited in Hindi. I like to quote last line of his poem.
हर सपना वो मच्छर हैं, जो सोने नहीं देता
Pratik Raj Mishra recited 2 poems in Hindi. One was about finding love and another was when love has gone. He sang his last poem instead of recitation. It was focused on motherhood. Bapu Narayankar recited 2 gazals मेरी यह आगाज हैं and सुर्खी
There was recitation in Kannada also. Kiran was a first timer. He recited ‘feeling without titles’. It commented on the situation of buying a flag on Independence Day and throwing it very next day. His second poem was on feminism. ShivaShankar was reciting for the second time. In his first poem, he presented situation of re-union at school after many years. In his second poem, he described a strange situation while riding, in an Auto Rickshaw.
Priya was also first timer. She recited in Tamil. Her poems were based on romanticism. I could not understand much of it, but one of her poem highlighted this phenomenon in Cinema.
After writing about first timers, let me describe about few regulars.
Vidya Krishna recited 2 poems. In her first poem, she described experiences of raising a teenage daughter. In her second poem, situation of election season has been beautifully portrayed. Tarundeep Kaur recited few short works based on the theme of ‘rain’. Her poem was inspired from a book. Faiz Akram talked about recent incidents in Kashmir and problems associated with it. Anshul Nagori recited पहाड़ और समंदर, which was his version on how mountains and oceans were formed.
Our very own Nitish Nair drifted a bit this time. Instead of comic, he has written a serious one, and mesmerized us with the portrayal of recent social conflicts in India. Srividya Srinivasan used pros poetry recitation format to recite her poem. Sourav Gogoi recites regularly at LPB. But today, he recited in Hindi for the first time. Along with his hindi poem, आग, he recited ‘Rebel’ and ‘Words on Win’. Pallavi Goswami recited a poem ‘mis-intrepretation’.
Sarit Sethi was not present physically, and Vidya Krishna recited his poem. His poem मेरे मोहल्ले की वो तंग गलियां took us back to the streets of our childhood. Sarabjeet Singh recited 4 short poems, including his famous quarter life crisis.
During my turn, I recited about the difficulties faced by many people during house search. Text version of my poem:
You can imagine easily, that event was definitely a long one. We had to move outside to listen to the last 2 poets. We stood at the stairs and this entire scenario has created an amphitheater environment.
Monica Kamath, despite being first timer, recited beautifully despite being a slightly challenging situation. In the end, our time-keeper for today’s event Prashant Hayaran recited few lines in Hindi.
As always, let poetry be was full of laughter, fun, and filled with emotional roller coaster ride.
(Based on my personal experiences/observations. Need not to be true to the facts)
More information:
– Let Poetry Be, Facebook page
– Let Poetry be collection of Poems
– Event Page ‘Free Reading at LPB’
Ankit Khandelwal 