SLAM CULTURE IN DELHI

 

We all are much acquainted with the literary thirst of Indian National Capital which has been a hub of reading and enjoying literature since many years. Many of the known, less known or unknown literary geniuses have been active in literary activities. Poetry Slam has also taken its form as a culture among the literary enthusiasts in recent years. The Slam revolution of Marc Smith reached Delhi and many individuals and groups came up with poetry meetups. Though there is no particular slam competition on larger scale but people are joining hands in the name of slam as an art. Areas like Rajiv Chowk, Hauz Khas, Central Park etc., echo the word riots on weekends when the poets of Delhi hold their gatherings.

The Poetry Groups

50th PACH at Pot Belly, Bihar Niwas

Poetry enthusiast and bathroom poets have extensively used social media  as a tool in order to advertise the art of slam poetry and most of the meetups are announced via social media and held in regular cafes, lawns or parks. These groups are usually not sponsored, they survive on mutual contributions by the fellow poets and others. Many of the groups have come up very recently and few are less than 5 year old in the poetic arenas, to name a few PACH (Poetry And Cheap Humour), Poet’s Corner, Poet's Collective etc. these groups regularly hold open mic sessions and are open to anybody who can write his/her heart out and recite it. Most of these groups are not language specific which gives them wider engagements and audience. The people who join the sessions are very much varied from students and working professionals, to housewives and retired people. This variety is also found in the subjects on which the poetry is written by these people. Some of the common subjects are love, social injustices, rebel poems and poems of nature. You will find budding Wordsworths, Keats, Premchands and Eliots here. Poetry group like PACH has it’s tag line as “PACH karke nikal do” which actually means whatever is inside you just let it out.

Poetic Activists

This lot of advertizing poetry and sprinkling the poetic magic require efforts by people, and Delhi Poetic Culture also has its own gems involved in helping it grow. Anup Bishnoi, Aditi Angiras, Saumya Kulshreshtha, are few of them who took the wagon of poetry ahead. Anup Bishnoi along with his friends was the founder of PACH, the group which had been active all throughout these two years of its coming into life, holding the poetry sessions every fortnight. ‘Poet’s Collective’ which, was founded by Saumya Kulshreshtha an avid reader and a poet herself has been a platform to many mature and amature poets once a month. These sessions have been instrumental in inspiring the poets to write regularly and to polish their poetic talents.

Slam Performers

The slam culture gave birth to poets coming together as  groups and performing at various occasions in Delhi. Some of these groups are Bring Back the Poets, M.O.C (mildly offensive content), and Mockingbird Poetry (also known as MOCK). Bring Back The Poets was a group that took up the cause of LGBT rights in Delhi and spoke in favor of it, M.O.C. took up the general feminist cause against the ills of society against women, Mockingbird Poetry which has recently began, mocked religious tyranny and malpractices and criticized it.

Apart from these units of efforts there were other initiatives that were started to promote the poetical art. Poet’s Corner started with Delhi Poetry Festival in 2013 and conducted in 2014 its second edition, most of the colleges in Delhi has taken up poetry slam competitions as part of their annual cultural fests. Some web portals like StoryMirror has also come up to provide poets and writers a room for their selves. After all these efforts the Art of Slam in is growing at its own pace in Delhi, though it has been engrafted but it is growing as a subtle tree with no less talent than any other city.

-Assef Ali