Imagine this. A Sunday evening in fall. That slight nip in the air. Early sunset and the slightest hint of stars. Guests mingling over finger food and wine. And the piece-de-resistance : a bevy of poets all set to enthrall the audience with their enchanting verses depicting the Journey of Life. Who wouldn’t want to be there?!

It all started with an idea, a desire to bring creatives together on a platform for inspiring the community to engage in expressive art. This is the brainchild of Shanam Kapoor, Founder of Connect+Create, who texted me with an unusual request, a call for poets who would perform for people who have an appreciation of the arts and creating a possibility for those who are inclined to explore.

The idea was refreshing enough to get us going and connect with talented poets, who were equally excited to share their art of poetry and shayari for the connoisseurs and aspirants alike. Before we knew, we had a great line-up of über talented poets to engage, prep, share and perform. It’s been a couple months of preparations, and a friend of Connect+Create, Anu Bhat, founder of The Rural Painter, and a curator of South Asian art has graciously stepped up to host the event and offer an art tour in the evening of the salon.

Let’s meet the poets and creators behind this creative venture!

The Rural Painter curates art from around the world, offering the artists an international platform for their work. When Anu Bhat founded The Rural Painter 3 years ago, she had a vision of art transcending borders and promoting artists. She is drawn to those who create what they see on a daily basis – their culture, surroundings and way of life. Her endeavor is for the paintings to reach out and lead you on your own journey around the world. 

Ashini J Desai balances creative writing with family and a technology management career. She writes poetry and short stories, which have been published in various literary journals and anthologies. While she doesn’t write for a living, she writes to live! She believes that to live your best life, all you need are books to open your mind, art to inspire you, and music to sweep you away.

Nidhi Thakur has traveled what she calls, a journey in time, space and sensibilities, that inform her desire and decision to examine, soak and narrate stories about the extraordinary persistence of memory and emotion in what appear as ordinary events and people. Professionally an economist, she is by instinct a story-teller, and dabbles in short fiction as well as poetry. She curates her shayari in writing and through videos in a Hindi-Urdu-English platform called HeartVersesMind.

 

Prajakta Paranjpe, adjunct professor of English based in New Jersey, is a little fish swimming in the ocean of multi-lingual currents, hoping to find a way through her writing.

Priya N Iyer is an economics professor who dabbles in English and Hindi poetry.  Poetry is her means of finding her inner self and reconciling that with the world outside. She is excited to share her poems with a wider audience,  hoping to improve her craft and give wings to her creative expression.  Her poems reflect her observations of the world around her.

 

A public speaker and trainer, Supreet Bains-Sharma expresses her creativity through words – both written and spoken. Her mantra is ‘you won’t know till you try’, and this made her an accidental poet. Her poetry, public speaking, writing and blogging are all driven by her purpose – help people and honor people, specially women. Poetry to her, is a means of connecting with others at the deepest level, of acknowledging and accepting emotion, and celebrating it.  She would love to know what her audience thinks and feels when they hear her poems.

 

Love, loss and the ties that bind us – these are some of the things NJ based poet Anu Mahadev writes about. There are the occasional travels and other life experiences tossed in for flavor, but she makes her voice heard through her glorious imagery and metaphor-infused language. Poetry as a medium of expression liberates her and lets her choose who she wants to be on every page, as a musical storyteller.

For Pooja Garg, her words are incidental and even writing feels noisy. She prefers quietude. And yet she has been writing as far as she can remember. She loves to explore the themes of time and space in her poetry where love and loss, the everyday and the eternal come together to voice her innermost experiences. She is a feminist by surprise – as she grew up, it was surprising to her to know that world was different for women and that led her to write poems about that. A communications professional and abuse volunteer, Pooja loves conducting Poetry as Therapy workshops. A communications professional, Pooja is Founder Editor-in-Chief of The Woman Inc. Pooja has a collection of poems to her credit called Everyday and Some Other Days. Chosen by Eclectica as the Best of Poetry in the last 20 years, Shabana Azmi called her poems, ‘very moving and a must read’.

Deeply passionate about creativity and a desire to share the magic of creative pursuit with everyone, our ebullient presenter Shanam Kapoor moved from a corporate career as a Director of rehab for 17 yrs to a fulfilling career connecting people to themselves, so they connect better with others.

 

Our creative sponsors are:

Drinks: Bira91

Food: Hemant Mathur Catering

Decor: Embellabox.com

Surprise gifts: Bhavna’s Exclusive

Host: The Rural Painter

Produced by: Connect+Create 

So what are you waiting for? Come, attend this beautiful event, and savor the poetry, the art, the atmosphere and the people. Tickets for the salon are available here ! 

We, at The Woman Inc., are chuffed to be a part of this event and are looking forward to partnering with more events in future. If you have an idea and would like us to collaborate, find out more here.