5 Hindi Poems From The Poetry Channel You Should Be Visiting

by Debojit Dutta

We have heard a lot about the decline of vernacular Indian poetry, or poetry in general, and have looked for the cause in our fast-paced lives, Television, Internet, etc.

It is a steady decline from the days when women admirers would send the Punjabi poet Shiv Kumar Batalvi letters written in blood, and poets could fight for popularity with movie stars.

Whatever be the reason for this general apathy, if technology did really push poetry into oblivion, the onus must be on the same technology to resurrect it. And it might just be happening. YouTube slam poetry being shared by major news aggregators is a welcome sign, so is the advent of poetry channels like Hindi Kavita.

The YouTube channel, an initiative of the production house Active Illusions, that began last year has brought together a number of eminent personalities from different fields of art to read their favourite Hindi poems in video format. It is a welcome change following the footsteps of Pakistani’s newspaper Dawn’s wonderful series of Saadat Hasan Manto readings. The clear and controlled emphasis on the visual part of the readings definitely make listening to poems a thoroughly engrossing exercise.

For you, here we have some of excellent Hindi poetry readings that Hindi Kavita has done so far.

“Bhool Galti” by Muktibodh

Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh who lived from 1917 to 1964 is one of the pillars of the new Hindi poetry. Considered to be one of the pioneers of modern poetry in India, he was the much-required point of deviation from the Chhayavad, or neo-romanticism, movement in Hindi literature.

Here in veteran actor’s Rajendra Gupta’s voice you hear the poet’s “Bhool Galti”.

“Hatasha Se Ek Aadmi” by Vinod Kumar Shukl

This beautiful poem by a personal favourite poet, Vinod Kumar Shukl, is narrated with an anecdote by actor/ director Manav Kaul. A poet himself and a Shukl fan, Kaul once dialed our poet’s number and hung up saying “I love you.” Watch the video for the beautiful poem and also to know Shukl advice to Kaul’s poetry broke the latter’s heart.

“Andha Yug” by Dharamvir Bharati

Dharamvir Bharati is renowned for being one of the most experimental writers from India. His Suraj ka Saathvan Ghoda, also made into a movie by Shyam Benegal, remains a cherished gem of Indian literature for its flights of imagination and non-linear narrative technique.

Here we watch his wife Pushpa Bharati narrate an extract from his verse play “Andha Yug” which narrates an incident after the great war of Mahabharata.

“Torch” by Manglesh Dabral

Actor Virendra Saxena remembers those days when torch used to be a “thing”. Torches would not only light up ways at night, they were some kind of status symbol: if you had them you were an important person. Poet Manglesh Dabral’s poem “Torch”, read by Saxena, evokes the feelings of those days in a simple conversation that ends leaving us with a question to ponder upon: what is the use of a torch that can’t light a fire?

“Jeene ki Aadat” by Vinod Kumar Shukl

Biased as we have already told you we are towards Vinod Kumar Shukl, we leave you with another of his poems read, again, by Manav Kaul. The writer of Naukar ki Kameez and Deewar Mein Ek Khidki Rehti Hai, Shukl here again plays with our minds with the interplay of words, as . The confusion of words, call it chaos if you want to but we won’t, is as if a reflection of the poet’s state of mind and beyond — the world where we reside.