Delhiwale: A WhatsApp poet’s tribute

Just finding the time to write poetry can be fearsomely difficult if you’re the corporate director of a 5-star hotel.

“True enough,” admits director Navneet Dhawan, 55, who writes only on Saturday evenings before sending the verses to his eight WhatsApp groups.

Penning verse is his lifelong love, starting in college days “when I became greatly involved with ghazals,” he recalls. Mr Dhawan would compulsively listen to the recordings of legends such as Ghulam Ali and Jagjit Singh. “And the philosophic undertones of those lyrics moved me to pen shayris,” she says.

But then he got busy making something of his professional life and didn’t take up poetry again until about 10 years ago. He now has a blog with more than 150 verses. The creative act gets under way on Saturday evenings when Mr Dhawan sits down in the TV room at his home in Sainik Farms and pushes some buttons-until spotting some old Hindi movie. “Preferably with Muhammed Rafi or Kishore Kumar songs.”

They’re the lightning rods that spark Mr Dhawan into action, tapping verses on his mobile. Upon completing a poem, he’ll immediately share it with his WhatsApp groups.

But, to be sure, there are other avenues that energize his creative mind. Mr Dhawan recalls the killing of an army major in Jammu & Kashmir during the last general elections, “but news media were too occupied with the elections to pay proper attention to the officer.” His heart went out to the major’s little daughter and was moved enough to compose this English poem.

First Published: Sep 11, 2018 14:02 IST