Tishani Doshi

So in a way, you have people really struggling to do the right thing, but not having state support or structural support.

And I think of civilization, a marker of a good civilization is one where you look at a country and you see how are we treating our elderly?

How are we treating our weak?

How are we treating our ill?

How are we treating those who cannot always help themselves?

Do you know?

And I think in that way, I feel the remarkable thing about India is, of course, that individuals are doing so much and are almost forced to because there is a gap in the state structural support.

Do you know?

Poets?

I feel I'm quite voracious about poetry.

I tend to read a lot of contemporary poetry.

I began with, you know, Neruda, Rilke.

Kamala Das, who was an Indian poet, was very, very important to me because she

broke all taboos she wrote about things that people would normally never write about not just love and sex but you know menstruation and this and that and she was very also unafraid to risk sentimentality and I think in a poem that's important you know

So she goes into the heart of things.

So she was important.

And now I tend to read, I read a lot of contemporary American poetry, English poets, Indian poets.

I just feel I'm kind of always keeping an eye out for a new voice.

But there are also favorites that I return to.

And do you say poetry is a political force?