She is a process engineer who wears salwars to work, to hide her multiple tattoos, listens to the heavy metal band Tool, has an affinity for mosh-pits and has been a Bharatnatyam dancer for 14 years. Like her plate wasn't full already she writes poetry as well.
If I had not met Mahima Venugopal in person I would have some serious concerns about her, but I did meet her and she explains herself by saying, “I'm still trying to figure myself out.”
It was the first time this blogger was reading her poetry for public at “Tuesdays with the Bard” at Urban Solace. “Every time I wanted to express myself I would write, although at the time I did not know it was poetry,” she says.
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Her blog which is named metaphorically after her favourite book “Catcher in the Rye” came about only a year back, until then she used to document her work in her diary.
“A lot of things that depress me inspire me to write,” says Mahima. She loves animals and has made trips to the Banerghatta National Park with someone who knows someone who works there and allows her to play with the little lion cubs.
Growing up she wanted to be a veterinarian, but failed the cut off by two percent and wound up a process engineer. The fact that she loves her job conveniently works for her.
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She was introduced to Pink Floyd at the tender age of four by her father and that is where her alternate personality originated. She is a confirmed wild child and swears she has been to every concert Bangalore has ever had, and once nearly got trampled in the mosh-pit at a Megadeth concert.
Even her tattoos have a story to tell, her mortified mother had to choose between a tattoo and an eye-brow piercing, the tattoo won. But to give the girl credit, her tattoo was in honour of her late grandfather.
She was apprehensive about reading her poetry, “I am exposing my deepest thoughts over here, and it is unnerving,” says the poet, although this is not the first test of her confidence, she is the youngest and only female employee in her department at work.
The subjects of her poems have surprising depth and are astonishingly fresh.
Her poetry explores ideas like how a person is exactly where he is meant to be at any point of time and whether mythology and fantasy could all be true in a parallel universe (the writer thinks she must sell the movie rights to Christopher Nolan of “Inception” fame).
Her poem “Slightly Open Doors” is about people who are wary about what they let people know. Her trip to Gokarna resulted in one of her best works, “Jade”. “Write on the sand to know that I did, to prove that it will be washed away,” she read and she explains by saying whether things work out or not, you need to try.