Delhi, August , 2026: After The Pill, an award-winning short film, Priyanshu Modi has
marked an extraordinary yet personal milestone with a special book reading evening held in
Delhi, with close industry friends and family coming together to uncover some of his deepest
thoughts and emotions.
Influencers and artists such as Ahsan Vazir, Tanya Bedi, Tanishka Bahl, Aashi Sahni,
Hardik Arora, Ruchika Methwani and Arshan Ahmed came out in support of the young
filmmaker, who has carried stories and emotions within him since the age of 11.
Talking about the night, Priyanshu Modi, filmmaker, writer and Chtrbox creator, said, “This
was a dream of mine for 13 long years, and having my friends and family attend my book
reading made this book launch one of my core memories. The exchange of ideas, thoughts and
perspectives on life was exactly how I had imagined the night to be. It was raw, honest, and yet
something that stays with you for life. My book, Poems For Cigarettes, is all about empathy,
intimacy, and everything personal – and so was this night.
As a filmmaker, I have always observed people, understood their emotions, and found stories in
the most personal of moments. With this book, I found another way to explore that same instinct
through words. In many ways, the launch felt like a coming together of these two worlds –
storytelling through film and storytelling through poetry.”
With Poems For Cigarettes, Priyanshu Modi invited everyone into a world where poetry
becomes a space for introspection, emotional honesty and connection, bringing together his
sensibilities as a filmmaker and writer to explore the deeply personal experiences that shape
human relationships and emotions.
The launch served as a fitting reflection of the book itself; it was everything special for a young
artist to experience as he saw another dream come true.
About the Author
In Poems for Cigarettes, Priyanshu Modi presents an honest and deeply personal collection of
poems written across different phases of his life. His writing blends contemporary experiences
with raw emotion, exploring themes such as loneliness, relationships, mental health, dreams,
and hope. Rather than following conventional poetic forms, his work captures fleeting moments
and everyday experiences with sincerity and vulnerability.
His debut collection invites readers to connect with the emotions behind the words, encouraging
them to find their own meanings in each poem.
About the Book
Poems For Cigarettes is a collection of poems I mostly wrote between the ages of 20 and 23 –
a time when everything felt urgent, confusing, and painfully real. These poems move through
love, politics, and heartbreaks to identity crises, social unrests, and the mess of growing up in a
world that never really slows down.
Like cigarettes burning through different emotions, each poem here has sat with me through
something too heavy to hold. Cigarettes have this strange presence in culture and memory –
they show up in pauses, long conversations, heartbreaks, celebrations, waiting, loneliness,
reflection. Not because they solve anything, but because they accompany. That became a
metaphor I kept returning to.
These poems felt similar, hence the title.
Some whisper, some shout, but all are brutally honest. They aren’t stitched together by a form
or a thematic structure, because that’s how life happens – randomly. It’s just like growing up –
how we feel multiple emotions one after the other in no explainable order. It’s restless and raw.
But if somebody’s ever sat down with their thoughts and felt a little too much – they will find
something here to hold on to.
