Delhi-based singer popularises Hindi poems through music

Chinmayi Tripathi, a Delhi-based singersongwriter, has initiated The Music & Poetry Project to popularise Hindi poems through music. The first one in the series, Khushgappiyan, is written by contemporary writer and poet Anamika.

“I’ve decided to release songs as singles, so there is no particular date,” says Tripathi, adding, “As far as the response goes, the basic expectation is that people will be drawn to Hindi Literature more.”

The album has been funded by a crowd funding campaign. She says, “My intention while developing it has not been to make it a commercially successful project, but to create music that is contemporary with the essence of poetry.”

Most of the poems that she has picked are written by Chhayavaad poets, such as Suryakant Tripathi ‘Nirala’, Mahadevi Verma, Shivmangal Singh Suman and Ramdhari Singh Dinkar. “Selfexpression, sense of freedom and relationship with nature, these are timeless themes and the poems are timeless too,” she explains. The process of getting the project together was a roller coaster ride for her. “It is such a mammoth task to find out who owns the rights for a piece of work, where is the person, how to contact them,” she says, adding, “It was so painstaking that I literally lost it a few times. But somehow things happened," she says.

However, great things happened too. “I spoke to actor Piyush Mishra. I shared some of the songs and he agreed to recite a few poems.”