We bring to you some young Indian profound voices that are doing a lot of groundbreaking work in the poetry scene. These people have captured the imagination of young Indians and made poetry more accessible. If you follow their work, they will surely change your thinking and how you perceive society and things around you. These progressive, cultural icons write about subjects like love, healing, relationships, current affairs, etc. Hear these poets as they recite, and make you laugh, cry, fall in love or heal you while you watch them perform.
Simar Singh
Simar Singh, a spoken word poet based in Mumbai. He is twenty-year-old and is the founder of UnErase, a spoken word platform for poets to voice their opinions. Simar will make you fall in love with him the moment you listen to his poem “How to Be a Man.” He will make you question the societal roles that are imposed on a man, from the time he is just a young boy. Simar’s poem will demand you to put yourself in the shoes of a man and think about everything he has to go through right after he is born as a child. Not spoiling the poem for you, but it is one of the poems that is a must-listen-to.
His voice captures your ears and will make you feel overwhelmed, while he recites his poem about marital rape. The ending of his poem will make you clap and hoot, while it will also leave questions lingering at the back of your mind. You will watch yourself cry, laugh, and feel love as you listen to his poems on repeat. You should also listen to “Dear Religious Extrovert” and “When a Boy is Slut Shamed”, by Simar which will leave an impact on you.
Starting Unerase at the age of sixteen, a twenty-year-old will make you fall in love with his poetry while he makes you question all the ideas and societal structures built around you.
Ashish Begrecha
With one of his most famous poetry books, “Dear Stranger, I Know How You Feel”, Ashish helps you connect with yourself, tells you that you are not alone in this fight with depression, stands by your side, and convinces you that you deserve so much more. It is a conversation with Ashish where you can talk about your pain, your fight, and your give-up. After which, Ashish’s poems refill you with energy to fight and help you get back the voice you have lost. Ashish himself is a fighter and survivor of depression.
Through one of his other poetry books named “Love, Hope, and Magic” takes you through your experience of what love, losing hope, then finding some hope, and what magic sparkling feels like. His book takes you through a whole journey of falling in love, having hopes, losing love, losing hope, then finding hope and love again, and then some magic entering your life. If you follow him on Instagram, you will find reels of him, reciting some beautiful lines from his poetry books. You will also find some very authentic and beautiful poems about fatherhood, as he recently became a father and has been pouring all the love he has for his daughter.
Aranya Johar
Aranya Johar is an influential figure on Instagram for youth. Hear this 22-year-old Indian poet talk about gender equality, body positivity, and mental health in her poems. You will find her poem “A Brown Girl’s Guide to Beauty ” a revolution in itself. Her words will capture your mind and make you confront the dichotomy of beauty standards.
Her work and her posts on Instagram will move you to love your body, exactly the way it is. Her words will pierce your mind and make you question the ideas of beauty, gender, and mental health that still exist in society.
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Nikita Gill
An Indian Sikh Poet born in Gurugram. Nikita will make you feel the power of self-love as you read her book named “Your Soul is a River”. The poems in the book will make you experience the feeling of love, loss, grief, heartbreak, and everything that life will take you through. It takes you through a journey of experiencing trauma, every single bit of it, and then lifts you by healing you, your soul. It is one of those books that speaks to your soul and brings you closer to yourself.
Her poems will make you rejoice with the truth of Hindu mythology, as her poems are rooted in Hindu mythology, especially her book named “The Girl and the Goddess”. It takes a feminist turn and gives you a new lens from which you look at things. She is also an Instagram and a Twitter sensation. So, if you want to challenge your idea of feminism, follow her on Instagram and see what magic she has to offer you.
Akhil Katyal
Akhil Katyal is the author of “Like Blood on the Bitten Tongue Delhi”, a book which is a collection of poems in which beats an old city’s heart, visceral and noetic, brash and gentle, unyielding and evolving, all at the same time. Reading his book is a mesmerizing experience. He will take you on a long ride to savor the living in one of the oldest cities in India. From going on the metro adventure to talking about the thrilling thought of going to the moon. Akhil’s poems bring authenticity to his work and sprinkle the beauty of the writing styles by poets and poems written in Urdu and Hindi languages.
Read more about his work on Instagram, and notice how he make you feel hurt, powerless, damaged and then refill you with love, hope, healing, empowerment, and make you believe in yourself.
Khawaja Musadiq
Based in Srinagar, Kashmir, Khawaja captures moments and turns them into poetry. His poetry expresses strong emotions of love and pain through which he tries to communicate to you. His poems such as “Paradise Lost” and “Let the Gardens Bloom” tell stories and struggles of the people in Kashmir. It will walk you through the beautiful roads of Kashmir and then take you down the lane of pain, and struggle, depicting how Kashmir has been torn apart over all these years.
Khawaja’s poems will ignite the feeling of self-love, touch your heart, drive you to be more empathetic as you sit and savor the words of his poems while having a cup of tea/coffee. He will describe to you the feeling of being home, yet feeling home. Also know and referred to as “poets of blue”, Khawaja has 11.3k followers on Instagram that he inspires each day. Join him in his ride to Kashmir’s history and realities as he recites his poems out loud to you.
Harnidh Kaur
Another young Indian poet/author you should follow is Harnidh Kaur. If you want to read some interesting poems on womanhood, feminism, Harnidh’s poems are the right fit for you. If you have a strong idea of feminism or you are still exploring it, let Harnidh challenge it a little for you.
Harnidh’s book named The Inability of Words will take you through Harnidh’s journey of pain, confusion, and help you connect to her transitional journey as a whole. You will be able to connect to her poems, and not be able to forget them at the same time. Hear her being honest, simple, profound, yet very impactful, as you read the book.
What if forgetting was a skill that you could master? Harnidh’s book The Ease of Forgetting will make you question your ideas of forgetting. Is forgetting an art? Something that you need to master? Well, it will be a great idea to read and then see what impact The Easy of Forgetting has on you. Nonetheless, without knowing when, you will end up falling in love with her poems and her.
Read more about their work on Instagram, and notice how it makes you feel hurt, powerless, damaged, and then refill you with love, hope, healing, empowerment, and make you believe in yourself.
