Purple Hues -3 An Interview with Tanya Singh

1- You are a proud contributing Author of Purple Hues-3, India's favorite Anthology. What is your story/ poem about? Is it related to your own life or someone you know?

First of all, I want to express my gratitude that I got an opportunity to write for this anthology. Well, that was the most valuable e-mail to me from you Nikita! Writing poems is a soul song to me. I do not read many books to write. My writing is all about the people whom I have met and the impacts they left. Literally, there are stories from different people and my observations about them.My musings, quotes, poetry, songs reflect the beauty of raw, void, incomplete emotions.

My poem, "The Man Like You" is about an imaginary man who feels the depth of the woman, who wants to fulfill her dreams which are already turned to ashes, who encourages that woman to make her own identity.

And to him, a ·woman does not even belong to the body only. That woman gradually falls for him and also praises that man by writing him in the poems. Hence she finally immortalises that man.

Here are the last lines...

"Even the world perishes,

and everything ceases to exist;

Placing you on an owl's quill,

bleeding you on paper.

Immortalising you, in a perfect form;

I conserve, the man like you."

My second poem," Coming to realize" is about the person who realized life is never loyal, can end anytime. It is a series of mistakes and realizations which has almost all feelings and situations - love, fight, union,separation, respect, blame, forgiveness, anger, regret etc. But experiences says, the most beautiful invention of life is the death. The realization of life's truth can be black and scary but for the poetic eye they all are gems. This poem will force you to love the blackness of life.

Here are the few lines-

"Not everyone I loved, was good at loving me.

And then I realized, sometimes it's good in unloving too.

If you like, visit me sometimes;

stay as much as you can.

As in every spring, a tree shed silently its leaves;

I realized relations can be kept without complaints too."

2- As the theme for the series is Inspiration, tell us who or what inspired you to start writing.

               I'm empathic i.e. sometimes bliss and sometimes curse to me. Just because of it I started my writing several times and stopped many times.I was grown up in the small town where my parents struggled a lot for giving me a good education. Especially, my mother whom I had always seen suffering, that impacted on my childhood. I was the too sensitive child who had toys but never played with them instead I had something to do with pen and paper. At the very young age I use to write down quotes from Great people in my personal diary. When I was in class 9th I wrote a poem in Hindi -

"ओ माँ !!! -२ का शब्द जब

प्रेम उदगार से भरता उसे ..

सर्वस्व छोड़ चली केवल तेरे लिए..

इच्छा थी ह्रदय में तेरे रहने की ..

पर पाकर मातृत्व तू भूलाता गया

साथ भ्रष्टाचारी रंग चढ़ाता गया |

क्या कभी कर्ज माँगा था उसने…????

जो छोड़ चला तू.., आखिर किसके लिए ???

आसूओं से रहित होंगी क्या,

उसकी नयन की नमित कोरें ???

दहकते दर्द की ज्वाला ह्रदय में

ले रही है हिलोरें..|

परिचय यही , इतिहास यही

 विस्तरीत नभ का क्या कोई कोना ..???

रोक सकेगा “उस माँ का रोना “.."

Unknowingly my mother found and read it. She was so pleased and amazed because I had written more maturely than my age permits. My first inspiration is my mother's tear. I found myself too helpless and feelings bottled up inside that bled in form of dark and painful writeups. Slowly my writings turned towards romance and I graduated in unrequited romantic writings just after my 11th standard. During my graduation and training my writings were shaped and polished by Urdu words. Later on, my interest turned into English stuff too.  But I never shared them, due to encouragement of several friends and colleagues I started posting them on facebook page named respectively 'Few feelings' 'Pretty words between sheets'.

I'm too lazy to craft my poems under one theme but time to time encouragements from Ashish Chatterjee sir, Ratnesh Chandra Pandey, Sister Tessy, Sir Joshy, Rajiv Sharma, Rishabh Pandey, Arun Prakash Singh always provided enthusiasm to my desire of writing.

            I can't forget my admirers Madam Neelam, Sir Rajesh, Divyansh Sinha, Roop Ji Shukla, Abhishek Patel, Manorama, Sonam, ¶Vibha,Anand Rai, Jitendra Yadav, Akshay Srivastava who always demanded something new and gave chances to improve myself.

 

 My writings, also, faced many ups and downs like me. Just because of career and family I struggled with negative thoughts. I buried my pen and diary inside my wardrobe. Tried some private jobs and luckily I met Shikha Chaturvedi ( before her marriage), we shared deep conversations later on she became my close partner and gave inspiration for my writing. In her absence, my life partner ( last love) motivated me to get published.

Writing in the different genre is a satisfying pleasure to me. But it also faced criticism which somehow motivated me more. I must say nothing would have come right if my work has not faced some critics, mocks, and appreciation.

 To revive my writing these days I'm reading Deeksha Sonia Grover, Vishakha karma ,Jhelum Anikhindi,Varsha Chaturvedi,Saket Garg, Prasoon Vyas,Kalpana Pandey,Anuup Kamal Agrawal,Umar Farook,Rajni Malik,Anshii Rai,Poonam Archana Singh, Khawaja Musadiq etc  are some writers from your quote who secretly inspires me.

3- Do you think that Artists have a social responsibility? If you had all the power, what is that one thing you would like to change about our world?

           

                                             In the context of a poet, if we look the history, poets before India's freedom; hundred of known and unknown poets who gave immortal words to freedom struggle as well as gave the concepts and vision of freedom in society.Well, I'm not sure about unique responsibility but I think poets should be constantly aware of their role and shall be more sensitive to the powers of the language they use.

Hmmmmm... If I had all the powers I think I would upgrade Morality and Compassion in the world. 😊😊*smiles*

4- What is your message for the young, budding writers? 

       Well, I do not have so much expertise in writing but I started writing after reading books, watching, meeting or listening to new people as well as sharing some of my experiences.

Based on my experiences on writing, I'm going to suggest as straight as I can - Be original, listen to people and read more about your genre, never put full stop to improve and excel, be simple in style of your writing because everyone is not a literature student some can be like me. *laughs*

5- What do you think should be the next theme for Purple Hues?

      Men have excellently portrayed the beauty, depth, suffering and strength of women. But I would like to suggest a theme (only for women) where everything is related to men either their struggle, their broken heart, strength, depth etc. It shall be more challenging to write about men's life.