April - International Poetry Month: The show must go on!

Room Theatre’s initial program for the month of March, 2014 created an impact on the audience and at the same time, it gave me a tremendous confidence. Yes! From home, I can do, as advised by the doctor. Mind started thinking- what next? And suddenly I came to know that April month is being celebrated as a Month of Poetry. Inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, National Poetry Month, held every April, in America, is the largest literary celebration in the world with schools, publishers, libraries, booksellers and poets celebrating poetry’s vital place in our culture.

   

  So I got the theme. 3^rd April is being celebrated as World Hindi Theatre Day in India. We discussed with our group mates and fixed April month program on performance of poetry. To give additional flavor and being a female, I have an additional soft corner for women weavers of all fields. Poetry performance of women poets! Putting another flavor, it was decided to organize it as multi-lingual poetry performance of women poets. More enthusiasm sometimes creates more confusion.

We announced the program. But working always comes to me only. I started talking to multi-lingual people, started getting data of women poets of different languages. I thought that in Mumbai, getting women poets in various languages will not be a difficult job. But thinking and implementing are quite different chores.

With great difficulties, we managed women poets from Hindi, English, Marathi, Urdu, Maithili. It was in our charter of the program to involve more and more people from all the creative fields, we decided that poems will not be performed by the poets themselves. Listening own poems from others give a new bundle of experience and charm. Poetries will be performed by other talents, may be by theatre enthusiasts. I started searching and talking with theatre people. After all, it’s a performance.

But it’s said that man proposes, God disposes. Just before one week, my sickness relapsed. Infection occurred and I was hospitalized. My main worry was to conduct the program. The show must go on. I requested my other members that though I will be in the hospital, but the program should not get postponed or canceled due to absence of one person. And my fellow members did the job in a great way. Now, there was no performance. It was a poetry recitation. Poets other than Hindi and English recited their poems in their own languages and translations were recited by other members of Room Theatre. Poets, who came on my invitation, got disappointed not to get me there. But listening the reason, they all cooperated with full of their heart and zeal.