The need to belong
We humans have an innate drive to belong, in our family, tribe, and sometimes in imagined places, described in story books or poems. We thrive when we feel we belong.
In 1989, I read Bharti Mukerjee’s book Jasmine which helped me make sense of my experiences as a relatively new immigrant from India. I was living in student housing on the Stanford University campus. There were so few Indians in Silicon Valley that if we ever saw another one in public, we would walk up to happily strike up conversations. There was no Internet and very limited access to anything Indian, no Hindi radio stations or even books, except for what we carried back from India.
One evening, I was hanging out at Encina Hall, the home of the Economics Department, with my friend Ashish, a PhD student who had studied with me at Delhi University. He spontaneously recited some Hindi poems, to my great delight. The next day, I went to the foreign language section in the Greene library in search of Hindi books. That is how I discovered the short stories of Premchand, the poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz (in English transliteration with translations), and the anthology of Masterpieces of Urdu Ghazal: From the 17th to the 20th Century by K C Kanda.
It started my lifelong love affair with Hindustani poetry.
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A misspent youth
Growing up in a middle-class household in New Delhi, English was the foisted aspiration. It was and remains the language of opportunities and good jobs. Hindi was the street language but studying it was for those who could not access the elite English medium schools. So naturally, reading Enid Blyton, Graham Greene, and James Hadley Chase but not Premchand or Faiz, was how I mis-spent my youth. The popular Hindi cinema songs blaring from radios were the closest I came to poetry, although I do recall finding Kaka Hathrasi’s hasya kavita (humor poems) very funny when I heard some poets in the rare kavi sammelan (poetry conference) on Doordarshan, the only television station.
On September 28th, 2024, I was back on the Stanford campus, in Encina Commons, reading four Hindi poems, with my English translations. The night before, ArtForum SF founder, Kiran Malhotra, had remembered Bharti Mukerjee as she opened the South Asian Literature and Art Festival (SALA) weekend.
I was invited to read at the festival thanks to poet Shikha Malviya Sakalani, a SALA volunteer who worked tirelessly to build the poetry program. She moderated and curated the open mic session where several local poets, such as myself, read. She also interviewed the Pulitzer prize-winning poet Vijay Sheshadri, one of the keynote speakers. Sheshadri is recognized for bringing a fresh voice to American poetry and currently serves as a professor at Sarah Lawrence College. Vijay’s poems can be sampled here and those of the local poets from their websites listed on the SALA program.
A poetry incubator
Between 1989 and 2024, in Silicon Valley, access to all things Indian has increased, thanks to the large numbers of computer professionals from India, and the Internet. Hindi cinema, books, plays, dance shows, restaurants, groceries, Bollywood fitness classes at the local YMCA, and public celebrations of major festivals like Holi, Vijay Dashmi, Navratri Dandiya, Diwali, and others are commonplace.
About a decade ago, I was so delighted to find folks who understood Hindi and were well-versed in Indian literature, in several different languages, that I started to host a literary gathering in my living room. Poetry lovers were welcome to come and read poems in all languages. Four years ago, the group was labeled Poetry of Diaspora in Silicon Valley. Indian or American poetry might rely on different idioms and forms but all poetry dares to put in words the paradoxical complexities of the human condition.
So many poetry lovers and poets have been nurtured in the hundreds of poetry circles I have hosted that I now call it a poetry incubator. This and my translations of Hindi poetry were perhaps how I got to read Hindi poems at Encina Commons.
No longer an imposter
Although I have heard many good poets, including at the Jaipur Literature Festival, hearing Vijay Sheshadri read his poems was different. I sat in the audience right next to authors Vikarm Chandra, and Moazzam Sheikh, just behind the peace activist and artist Salima Hashmi, who happens to be the daughter of Faiz Ahmed Faiz. At the opening reception, very briefly I felt like an imposter, as I am a business professor and engineer who has no business chatting casually about writing with Pulitzer and Booker prize winners and successful filmmakers. Yet, the feeling did not last long thanks to the warm welcome, and Kiran mentioning Bharti Mukerjee. It reminded me that we have common friends in the authors, books, and characters. I belonged with them.
By the closing session, I ran into engineering professor Thomas Kailath, who has read in my poetry circles at my home. I told him about the anthology of Poetry of Diaspora poets. He asked how he might get the book. Even as I said “On Amazon” I remembered that I had just picked up the display copy from the bookstore table, so I was delighted to offer it to him.
Poetic liberation
To be amongst artists and rasiks (art aficionados) with shared cultural (or even socio-technical-historical) contexts was so liberating. I could rest the burden of having to translate or explain my context. The dialog, on and off stage, was about the creative process. Something about sharing our individual journeys, while also weaving the collective narrative as we validated each others’ voices in the many conversations was empowering.
The struggles and risks inherent in creative work and the dedication it takes are common no matter if you are a world-renowned artist or an aspiring newcomer. Even a Booker prize winner must defend his time to write from the demands of the world that wants to hear winners speak. We each have our own ghosts or muses that we are compelled to pursue. These conversations were precious.
Poetry shapes lives
Through the good, bad, and paradoxical times of my life, I have turned to poetry. Listening to the speakers, I discovered that poetry was formative in shaping many of them. Salima Hashmi told us how she had once been called a Faiz-style painter. Imtiaz Ali found his steady collaborators in film-making through a shared interest in poetry, where something undefinable resonated for them to trust each other to co-create. Then, as Imtiaz was getting off the stage, and many fans gathered around him, he made them wait to make his way directly to meet and greet the poet Vijay Sheshadri in the front rows of the audience.
I reached for my camera to capture the two creative geniuses in one frame. With artists and rasiks coming together in a shared experience, I came away knowing in my bones that our stories matter. Expressing them together is a celebration of who we are and can become. Our living traditions that make us feel we belong include creating spaces together, as embodied action affirms our values.
Maybe that is why I called this year’s poetry anthology of Poetry of Diaspora poets: Being, Becoming, Belonging. Encina Commons, where my love of Hindi poetry started, brought it home for me. I am still on cloud nine, brimming with creative ideas. With collaborations, something will come to fruition before the festival returns next year.