BIKANER: The afternoon sun falls gently over Bikaner. There is something about the city’s slower pace that Akanksha Singh, a young Hindi poet originally from Bihar, has come to value. She likes sitting beneath a tree, watching the leaves move in the wind, preferably from the comfort of a woven charpai. It is a simple pleasure, but one she is reluctant to exchange for the hurried life of a metropolitan city. Her debut collection, Tumne Aage Jana Chuna (You Chose to Move on), carries much of that quietness, although the emotions behind it are considerably more turbulent. Published by Jaipur-based Pankti Prakashan, the 95-page book brings together poems written through a prolonged experience of unrequited love. She never set out to become an author. The book happened almost by accident.
The first printed copy, she recalls, left her somewhat bewildered. She kept turning its pages, looking at the poems and finding it difficult to believe that the words were hers. There had been no grand plan to publish a collection. During a difficult period in her life, writing became a way of putting thoughts somewhere rather than carrying them around all the time. Whenever emotions became difficult to manage, she would reach for paper. Some writings remained incomplete, others became poems, and gradually the collection began taking shape. Deepak Sir at Pankti Prakashan helped bring the scattered writings together.
What began as a private exercise eventually found readers across the country. The response has been particularly meaningful for someone who had, until then, largely written for herself.
The title, Tumne Aage Jana Chuna, sounds like an acknowledgement of loss, but Singh is reluctant to restrict its meaning to heartbreak. It can be read as a statement about separation, but equally as a reflection on the choices people make in life. Some leave relationships; others remain in them but find themselves moving ahead emotionally. The title, she believes, allows readers to bring their own experiences to the book.
Her understanding of love is less conventional. She believes it is possible to love someone without receiving the same affection in return. In fact, she feels that genuine love does not necessarily disappear because the other person has chosen a different life. The difficulty, in her view, begins when expectations become attached to the emotion. There is a difference between loving someone and wanting that person to love you back. She describes the latter as lagaav, an attachment that carries an expectation.
It is an interpretation shaped by her own experience. The person at the centre of the book is someone she has never met in real life. There has been no physical familiarity, no meeting across a table, no holding of hands. Yet the feelings remained with her for a long time and eventually found their way into her poems. She does not claim that everyone must understand such an experience. Nor does she attempt to turn it into a prescription for how relationships should work.
For her, the book became a way of communicating what could no longer be conveyed directly.
She often describes the entire collection as one long letter to that person. Since direct communication is no longer possible, the printed pages have assumed that role. Somewhere, perhaps, the person may eventually pick up the book and read it. Whether that happens now or years later is not something she can control. There is a certain relief in knowing that the words are no longer sitting unpublished in her notebooks.
There were, however, limits to what she was willing to put into print. During the preparation of the manuscript, Singh removed several personal portions because she felt the other person’s privacy deserved consideration. Some conversations had involved both individuals, and she did not believe that writing about her own emotions gave her the right to publish every private exchange. It is a small but important distinction, particularly in an age when personal relationships are routinely converted into public content.
One poem in the collection is especially close to her. It speaks about women who enter the lives of men still carrying the memory of someone they once loved. These women may offer companionship, help and emotional support, but rarely receive the same place in the man’s affections. Singh’s poem acknowledges their presence, a subject that does not receive much attention in conventional accounts of unrequited love.
The passage reads:
“वे पुरुष जो एक ही स्त्री के प्रेम में अपनी ज़िंदगी गुज़ार देते हैं, उनके जीवन में भी आती हैं कई स्त्रियाँ। वे स्त्रियाँ होती हैं उनके संवादों में, खालीपन के सन्नाटों में। वे पुरुष उन स्त्रियों को सब कुछ देते हैं, सिवाय उनके हिस्से के प्रेम के। वे स्त्रियाँ उन्हें चलाती हैं, उठाती हैं और सौंप आती हैं उन्हें… मैंने तुम्हें चलाया है, उठाया है और सौंप आऊँगी तुम्हें।”
The poem is not simply about the person who remains loved in someone’s memory. It is also about those who help that person continue with life, often without receiving the affection they might have hoped for themselves.
Singh’s writing has a distinct relationship with time. Mornings generally find her energetic, but evenings are different. As the sun goes down, memories return, sometimes unexpectedly. She says the quieter hours are when thoughts begin forming into words. There is no fixed writing schedule, and she does not always sit with a subject in mind. A thought may arrive while she is listening to music or sitting alone, and she tries to put it down before it passes.
Perhaps this explains her attachment to Bikaner. Originally from Bihar, she currently resides in the Rajasthan city and has little inclination to move to a metropolitan centre. Winter afternoons are particularly important to her. Sitting beneath a tree, watching the leaves move and enjoying the sunlight from a charpai is, by her account, enough to make a day feel complete.
She finds the idea of replacing open spaces with indoor plants rather unconvincing. A few flowerpots in an apartment may bring some greenery into a room, but they cannot reproduce the experience of sitting beneath a real tree. It is not an argument against city life; it is simply a preference for an environment in which she feels more at ease. For someone whose writing often emerges from solitude, that distinction matters.
The choice of print over digital platforms is another preference that sets her apart from many young writers.
Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts have become familiar routes for poets seeking an audience. Singh does not dismiss their reach, but questions their permanence. A video may receive attention for a few days and then disappear into the Saved Reels section of someone’s phone. A book can remain on a shelf for years. Someone may discover it long after its publication, open it casually and find a poem that speaks to an experience they had never quite managed to express.
She also speaks about the physical pleasure of reading. A book can be gifted, kept and revisited. The feeling of holding it and turning its pages is something a screen cannot properly reproduce. Her preference has a personal history too. As a child, she wanted someone to read what she wrote. Today, when readers approach her and explain how a particular poem relates to their lives, that wish feels fulfilled.
There is an interesting contrast here. Her writing often offers comfort to people experiencing emotional difficulties, but Singh herself tends to withdraw when she is troubled. She finds it difficult to call or message people during such periods. She would rather sit alone, listen to songs or remain in the silence of her room. Not every emotion, she seems to suggest, requires an immediate conversation.
The publication of her debut has also brought a steady stream of messages from aspiring writers. Many ask for publishing contacts, guidance and information about bringing out their own collections. Singh is pleased that people want to write, but she is not entirely comfortable with the urgency she sees around publication.
There is, she feels, too much emphasis on getting one’s name printed on a book cover. Some writers appear more interested in becoming published authors than in developing the habit of writing. She believes reading must come first. A writer has to observe people, understand different experiences and spend time with literature before attempting to produce meaningful work. Life itself has to be experienced, not merely described.
Publishing a book, she says, should not become a race. There is little point in rushing a manuscript simply because somebody else has brought out a collection. Writing requires patience, and the words must be given enough time to mature.
Singh is currently working on her second book. She has not set out to hurry the process, preferring to allow the writing to develop at its own pace.
When asked what she would like readers to take away from her first collection, she returns to the thought that had accompanied its publication: the book does not need to reach the person for whom it was originally written to find its place in the world.
“Somewhere in the world, he may read it one day. But even if someone else picks it up and finds their own feelings in those pages, I think that is meaningful too. I always wanted someone to read what I wrote. That, for me, has happened.”
