Linda Ashok laughs as she answers a question about her age. The 27-year-old, who identifies herself as pro-Tibetan, is the founder/president of RædLeafPoetry-India — a not-for-profit trust for promoting poetry and the allied arts with particular interest in the work of Indian poets, artists, photographers and scholars worldwide. Born and brought up in Kolkata, Linda has made Hyderabad her home for the last five years and is currently working on her second poetry manuscript that she will be reading from at the Poetry with Prakriti Festival.
What can one expect at your reading?
My manuscript is a work in progress that is susceptible to its surroundings and it has no set theme. However, my recent works include an image of burning to which I’m deeply connected at an internal level; I’m connected with Tibet. As a child I’ve seen the crisis, I’ve seen burnt, charred bodies and have heard my mother telling me about burnt bodies in the hospital (this was in 1992). Also, I grew up with no electricity at home — so I had to study by a kerosene lamp which burnt me several times. These were painful experiences. Apart from this, I’ve also written poems about personal correspondence with the self. about interrogating myself. I want to come across as sincere. Then there’s another part on the counter-punch to our thinking as a society. Why are we not engaging in thoughts that are more much serious? Instead, we are pouring hatred into LGBT issues. We need to be progressive in our forward thinking.
Do you make it a point to stay within the above themes?
Somehow all my work encompasses these themes I spoke about. While addressing social issues is important, I primarily want to bring a difference in myself by my writing and I have done my bit for to the world. In this course of writing, if I can make people think, then that’s good.
Is there a method you follow when while putting pen to paper?
I have written in the most erratic of times — in the middle of the night when I’m in the bathroom, on a bus, where I penned my first poem about an old lady — and fleeting thoughts are the most important ones; one has to use them constructively later. I write at any given time. I’m like a rag-picker; For me, every nanosecond is an experience.
Linda will read at 10 a.m. (S.D.N.B. Vaishnav) and 1 p.m. (Kids Central) on December 4, at 7 p.m. (Apparao Gallery) on December 5, and at 11.30 a.m. (Hari Shree Vidyalayam) on December 6. For details about the Poetry with Prakriti Festival, visit prakritifoundation.com
