Many different voices emerged during our workshops and for the last episode of our podcast, we curated a poem from these diverse voices. It is a collective poem, created with responses shared by children to a one-line exercise on the idea of Liberty. Their concerns range from freedom in personal spaces as well as the outside world. Perhaps, you may find your own thoughts and feelings somewhere in this amalgam. This is the last episode in our podcast but our collective endeavour to make sense of our complicated and intertwined histories must continue. We hope the podcast created a shared space to discover what we may not have experienced, to find resonance with another’s world. The children’s words, the children’s voices can help us find, reinforce and celebrate the plurality that lies in the idea of Hum Hindustani.
About the GuestSampurna Chattarji is a writer, translator, editor and teacher. She writes for both adults and young people and has collaborated on writing poetry across languages with other poets. Of her twenty-one books, nine are for young people. These include
The Bhyabachyaka and Other Wild Poems (Scholastic, 2019), co-authored with Welsh poet, Eurig Salisbury; her YA novel,
Ela: The Girl Who Entered the Unknown (Scholastic, 2013);
The Fried Frog and other Funny Freaky Foodie Feisty Poems (Scholastic, 2009); and her creative retelling,
The Greatest Stories Ever Told (Penguin, 2004). Her books for adults include the short story collection about Bombay/Mumbai,
Dirty Love (Penguin, 2013) and eleven poetry titles—the latest being
Unmappable Moves (Poetrywala, 2023). Sampurna’s translation of Sukumar Ray’s poetry and prose –
Wordygurdyboom! – is a Puffin Classic; and her translation of Joy Goswami’s prose poems
After Death Comes Water (HarperCollins, 2021) has been lauded as a recreation of the Bangla originals in “a living voice, as inventive and vivid as the English of Joyce”. She teaches writing to design students at IDC, IIT-Bombay and can occasionally be spotted on Instagram as @ShampooChats.
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hum-hindustani.inCREDITS
The Hum Hindustani Poetry Podcast is a production of The Magic Key Centre for the Arts and Childhood.
Conceived, Written, and Hosted bySamina Mishra
Poems read byAanvi, Arudra, Danyal, Haniya, Ishanvi, Labina, Lakshmi, Kashvi, Kyra, Rohan, Ronish, Samaa, Sarah, Sediqa, Ulfa
Children reading the poems mentored by Anannya Tripathyi
Studio recordingsAmartya Ghosh, Quarter Note Studios
Music Shireen Ghosh
Vocals Ishaan Chintamani
ArtworkAlia Sinha
Additional Research Rhea Kuthoore
Co-WriterS Gautham
Hindi TranslationTazeen Ali
Produced by Vaaka Media
AcknowledgementsAnannya Tripathyi
Gaurav Chintamani
Priya Mathews
Shikha Sen
Simurgh Centre
TESF India
All the children who participated in the Hum Hindustani workshops and wrote the poems
Support for this podcast comes from Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies.
The Hum Hindustani research project is part of TESF India.
