Is it just a whim of my mind
or
Are the daisies actually knocking on your door
Wouldn’t you open the door, my dear
or
Would you shun them a little more?
It isn’t their mistake, you know,
They are not the ones at fault.
Though you can treat them how you wish, my dear,
You can give it another thought.
But, what if the daisies die outside, my dear?
Where will we bury their fragrance?
— a poem penned by Priya Malik when she was 16
Placing my cup of freshly brewed tea (not adrak waali, unfortunately) on the table, I plugged in my earphones and tuned into Priya Malik’s recently released poetry titled ‘You’. This particular verse ‘The ring that surrounds the planet Saturn is nothing but Saturn’s lover giving it a long hug’ stays with me long after her vivacious voice dies down in the video.
And such is the beauty in the poetry penned by Priya Malik. You can’t help but feel like she’s reciting the words that your own heart couldn’t compose. The poet tells us that from a very early age, she has been an avid reader and performer. “Every time some guests would come over for dinner, I’d stand up on a table in our living room and recite poetry animatedly. I must have been only about 5 or 6 years old,” she recalls. She lets us in on a fun fact about herself, “A lot of my poems come to me in my dreams, usually in a state of REM, especially the tag lines.”