THEME OF FIRST SEASON: Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali
KERALA, JULY 2020: Vaishnavi Sanoj, a young Indian English writer and poet, has launched a podcast exclusively to promote poetry. She believes that poetry is beautiful because it holds words that are closest to silence. The podcast titled The Poetry Within was rolled out on April 26, 2020, and currently has 80 plus episodes. The first season of the podcast presents Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali. Five to ten episodes are uploaded every Sunday, and each episode features a single poem recited to the backdrop of melodious music.
The host of the show is a post-graduate in English Literature and second rank holder at the university level during her Bachelors in Education. Her poems and articles have been published in online journals like Commonwealth Writers, Muse-India and Indian Rumination. She is one among the recipients of the ‘Author of the Year 2019’ award by NE8X Online Literary Awards 2019. Her novel Sidereal Destiny has been featured as one of the ‘Top 100 debut English novels’ by Literatureslight & Criticspace Literary Journal. In 2020, three of her short stories won a place in the Honourable Mentions list by the Twist and Twain short story contest 2019 conducted by Twist & Twain online literary magazine. Earlier this year she had also associated with the storytelling platform Kahaniya and had written short stories, flash fiction and poetry for the website.
Vaishnavi believes that verses of Gitanjali are to be listened to, enjoyed, and meditated upon, hence unlike other poetry podcasts, The Poetry Within does not attempt to explain individual poems. This podcast is a humble effort to celebrate the magic of poems. These episodes head straight from the host’s study room to your devices; made with limited resources, but a lot of passion and love.
The podcast also features some episodes as a tribute to late Gitanjali Ghei, who penned Poems of Gitanjali. Her biggest wish was to live up to her name. To know more about Gitanjali and her poems, please visit the podcast.
Niranj Sathish, a student of commerce, and Harshita Janikiraman, a budding poet and singer have also co-hosted some of the episodes of the first season.
The podcast is available across various music platforms and Android Apps including Spotify, Google and Apple podcasts. Any listener who likes to get featured in the podcast may send their reviews as voice messages, by clicking the link given in respective episode descriptions.
