HYDERABAD: She goes by the pen name ‘Chai’, and can be seen giving away handwritten messages of hope to strangers at cafés and other public locations in the city. The only difference – she types the messages on a 100-year-old typewriter!
In today’s world, where many of us communicate using WhatsApp, the ability to strike a conversation face-to-face with a total stranger, understand the other person, empathise with their feelings, and pen words of motivation is not an easy task.
It gets further compounded by our hectic lifestyles, multi-tasking and the need to be ahead of time.
Born and brought up in Hyderabad, 23-year-old Drishti Nagda, a writer, poet and a final year student of Applied Linguistics at University of Hyderabad, says she likes watching people feeling happy, and loves telling their story to them, in her words.
How did it all start? They say misfortune can be a blessing in disguise. Drishti says she had broken her left arm a year ago in an accident and had to be hospitalised.
While recuperating, she had ample time to write and reflect upon life. She got to know of fellow buskers in Bengaluru, and as luck would have it, learned about her maternal grandfather’s typewriter from her uncle. She began penning messages and short poems and thought of taking it further and helping others in some possible way.
Busking, the art form which refers to performing art on the streets is a common phenomenon in the Western countries.
In India, especially Hyderabad, it is still in a nascent stage. “Earlier, we used to have nukkad natak and other art forms. As a civilisation, India used to have a lot of such theatrical performance arts”, she shares.
With the typewriter as her companion, Drishti chooses public spaces, interacts with strangers and makes them confide their feelings in her. “Typewriters don’t have backspace. Once a mistake is made, there’s no way you can erase it. It teaches you to think clearly and write correctly”, she points out.
Needless to say, Hyderabadis are overwhelmingly endorsing her ‘hobby’. She recounts numerous experiences over the past few months. “A kid came along with his doggie and asked me to write something from his pet’s point of view, of what it could say if it could speak. I typed a message from the dog’s perspective (in first person) and he was very happy”, she shares.
In another instance at a cancer prevention conference, she recalls that all the cancer survivors present there were optimistic about life and had no regrets.
During that meet, Drishti says a woman walked up to her and asked her to pen a letter to her daughter telling her to stay strong even when she’s not around, and to her son on how much she loves him. “She cried for five whole minutes on reading the two letters,” Drishti confides.
Being the founder of Hyderabad Poetry Project, Drishti also organises open mic sessions for those interested in poetry every month, which serves as a platform for encouraging new talent.
This weekend (June 29, 30), artistes Nupur Saraswat and Karunya Srinivasan from Bengaluru are giving a theatrical poetry performance ‘Girls just want to have fun’ at Jxtapose in Jubilee Hills. “It’s a new form of poetry; the play explores 12 stories on female friendships”, shares Drishti, before signing off.
For more details, contact hyderabadpoetryproject@gmail.com
Instagram: #hyderabadpoetryproject