Description:  Saumya will perform poetry by the masters, integrating stories from their life. These stories define what makes them a poet, what defines their language, and what were the conditions which led to the creation of a particular piece of poetry, which is time and space defying in the current context. The poets usually included in these narratives are Kalidasa, Amir Khusro, Mirza Ghalib, Amrita Pritam, Paash, Parveen Shakir, Agha Shahid Ali, Kamala Das, Nissim Ezekiel, Faiz and Iqbal. In essence, the session is strung together using a mix of Hindi and English translations. 

About the Artist: Saumya has spent the past many years of her life discovering, deconstructing and reconstructing the idea of poetry for herself, her students and her larger community. Through many engagement sessions and formal courses in universities across India, Saumya has endeavoured to make poets, across languages, friendly and familiar to the public. She has been mentoring many young poets through forums like Poets Collective, which she founded, and is known for curating a number of unique events themed around poetry (for one, she also has a world record in her name!). She sings poems and dances to the tunes of recitation. Poems by Ghalib, Faiz, Agha Shahid Ali, Amir Khusro and Kamala Das consume her. And when she is not dabbling in this world, she finds quiet and peace in her little mountain homestay, which she runs in Bir, Himachal Pradesh.

About: Baithak has been conceptualized and envisioned to create a non-stage forum centred around arts that will engage, listen and speak with the audience. They can range from beginning a dialogue on relevant issues around us, to simply soaking in the creative churning of an art form!