Delhiwale: ‘Wah wah, ati sundar!’

Beware of poets. They are always on the hunt for an audience.

If you like being their captive, then there’s a place in Delhi where many poets can recite their poems to you. Better still, you’ll get chai and samosas for free.

Once a month (every second Saturday), Ghalib Academy at Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti hosts something called a shairi nashasist—Urdu for poetry recital. The session begins at 4pm and goes on… till all the poets in the big hall finish reciting their compositions. The poems are rendered in spoken Hindi/Urdu of the Dilli vernacular. But the banner on the stage is always headlined in English, with big red letters boldly proclaiming that the evening is the “Monthly Literary Meet.”

The audience for the recital mostly consists of poets itching for their turn to claim the stage. These are poets published and not published, good as well as bad. Everyone’s welcome. One attendee at the recital held last time was a senior police officer from Jammu & Kashmir. Others came from localities across Delhi, and from neighbouring towns, including Hapur. One poet arrived from distant Agra.

The most common muse of the participants happens to be… well, ishq/pyar/mohabbat/l’amour/love. The poets sit stiffly on their chairs, waiting to be summoned on the podium. On that elevated height, the verse writer finally finds the dream audience to whom she reads aloud her new lines, either from memory, or from the mobile phone. A spirit of mutual sympathy lingers. Every speaker is applauded with gushing cries of wah wah, bahut khoob, bahut ache, ati sunder, too good, and kya kehne.

Some of the poetry-recital regulars include Hashmat Bhardwaj from Dwarka, Parveen Vyas from Gulmohar Park, Goldie Geetkar from Laxmi Nagar, and Seema Kaushik from Faridabad. Almost all have parallel professions—Hashmat is a lawyer, Parveen runs an NGO, Seema is an engineer, but Goldie is a full-time poet.

Explaining why these busy souls choose to sacrifice precious hours for the recital, Aqil Ahmad, Ghalib Academy’s longtime secretary, says: “Poetry is a nasha (addiction), it is a pyas (thirst), and as long as the poet doesn’t share the poems with others, the poet feels restless.” The soft-spoken gent started the monthly session 25 years ago to “gather together citizens from all walks of life for literature’s sake.”

The academy additionally holds a monthly nasri nashasist, which means “prose recital”, in which citizens share their short stories and essays. The prose people will meet this Saturday. Chai and samosas will be served at the seat.