Many different voices emerged during our workshops and for the last episode of our podcast, we curated a poem from these diverse voices. It is a collective poem, created with responses shared by children to a one-line exercise on the idea of Liberty. Their concerns range from freedom in personal spaces as well as the outside world. Perhaps, you may find your own thoughts and feelings somewhere in this amalgam. This is the last episode in our podcast but our collective endeavour to make sense of our complicated and intertwined histories must continue. We hope the podcast created a shared space to discover what we may not have experienced, to find resonance with another’s world. The children’s words, the children’s voices can help us find, reinforce and celebrate the plurality that lies in the idea of Hum Hindustani.

About the Guest
Sampurna Chattarji is a writer, translator, editor and teacher. She writes for both adults and young people and has collaborated on writing poetry across languages with other poets. Of her twenty-one books, nine are for young people. These include The Bhyabachyaka and Other Wild Poems (Scholastic, 2019), co-authored with Welsh poet, Eurig Salisbury; her YA novel, Ela: The Girl Who Entered the Unknown (Scholastic, 2013); The Fried Frog and other Funny Freaky Foodie Feisty Poems (Scholastic, 2009); and her creative retelling, The Greatest Stories Ever Told (Penguin, 2004). Her books for adults include the short story collection about Bombay/Mumbai, Dirty Love (Penguin, 2013) and eleven poetry titles—the latest being Unmappable Moves (Poetrywala, 2023). Sampurna’s translation of Sukumar Ray’s poetry and prose – Wordygurdyboom! – is a Puffin Classic; and her translation of Joy Goswami’s prose poems After Death Comes Water (HarperCollins, 2021) has been lauded as a recreation of the Bangla originals in “a living voice, as inventive and vivid as the English of Joyce”. She teaches writing to design students at IDC, IIT-Bombay and can occasionally be spotted on Instagram as @ShampooChats.

For more on the project, follow us
on Instagram
@themagickeycentre
or visit our website
hum-hindustani.in

CREDITS
The Hum Hindustani Poetry Podcast is a production of The Magic Key Centre for the Arts and Childhood.

Conceived, Written, and Hosted by
Samina Mishra

Poems read by
Aanvi, Arudra, Danyal, Haniya, Ishanvi, Labina, Lakshmi, Kashvi, Kyra, Rohan, Ronish, Samaa, Sarah, Sediqa, Ulfa

Children reading the poems mentored by
Anannya Tripathyi

Studio recordings
Amartya Ghosh, Quarter Note Studios

Music
Shireen Ghosh

Vocals
Ishaan Chintamani

Artwork
Alia Sinha

Additional Research
Rhea Kuthoore

Co-Writer
S Gautham

Hindi Translation
Tazeen Ali

Produced by
Vaaka Media

Acknowledgements
Anannya Tripathyi
Gaurav Chintamani
Priya Mathews
Shikha Sen
Simurgh Centre
TESF India
All the children who participated in the Hum Hindustani workshops and wrote the poems

Support for this podcast comes from Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies.
The Hum Hindustani research project is part of TESF India.