E P I G R A P H

❝ कल और आएँगे नग़्मों की खिलती कलियाँ चुनने वाले, मुझ से बेहतर कहने वाले
तुम से बेहतर सुनने वाले ❞

-  Sahir Ludhianvi

A few more (poets) will come tomorrow, to pick the budding blossoms of songs

There'll be better narrators than me
There'll be better listeners than you

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A E S T H E T I C S

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S P E C I A L   N O T E

Our language, as I've understood in my brief existence, is a lot like that one long lost lover that we thought we left behind.

You can move on from it, forget how it tastes like when it rolls off your tongue as you get used to pronouncing your own name in different ways, putting stress over the right syllables.

Sometimes even shrinking it in order to make it easier for people to say it, until it loses its actual meaning.

Until it just becomes letters weaved together to form a label that you can put on your shirt pocket, make it your identity so that when they look at you, they see you, even if it's just an embellished version that you put together for them.

This is me trying to reclaim my name in my language that I learnt how to speak in, before I even knew what having a name meant.

Hope you like these poems.

And, if you've been waiting for a sign to write in your first language, then take this as one.

- Love,
Anjali