A closet poet, Soniya Mehra

Young actor Soniya Mehra is a closet poet and the daughter of the late actor Vinod Mehra is planning to come out with a book of poems titled Flying with Broken Wings: A Poetic Journey. Her poems will be laced with elements and experiences of her life much like an autobiography in poems.

Soniya reveals, “As a kid I’ve always been very feisty, spontaneous and bubbling with ideas for things to do. Early on I began experimenting with clothes, my mother’s make-up and began watching a lot of films as well. Writing happened early on, basically as an extension of my personality and the need to be able to record my life. I used to come home and write down all my problems and things that were worrying me about my life in a diary.”

She adds, “I guess my creativity needed a valid outlet and at the age of 11, I began writing. This everyday chronicling of my life metamorphosed into writing short stories, and slowly I realised I could put my stories into poetry as they had a lot of imagery. There were two ways I’d let go of things that would worry me and my problems and that was dancing and writing — dancing as it physically helped me forget and writing helped me mentally sort stuff out and put things into perspective.”

Ask her what really inspired her to write poems and she shoots, “I guess my life was my inspiration behind my poetry.  I’ve been through a lot — even as a kid. I guess I felt the loss of my father not being there and I carried it around with me everywhere I went. When a child doesn’t have a father, especially when all my friends and people in my school had both their parents — it sort of affects the way they think and how they mature.”

She adds, “My brother and I were brought up by my nana-nani in Kenya and there was a lot of thinking that occurred especially with respect to growing up, parental influences etc. The only creative outlet that gave me the ability to express myself in a full-fledged way was my poetry. My trials, tribulations and my thoughts in general border from expressing my loneliness to wanting to forge a connection with who I truly am.

These are usually dark realisations and hence can be manifested in only one way possible — poetry resting on the abyss, masquerading as ‘dark’. And about the dark poetry being diametrically opposite to the way I look and behave — all I can say is ‘looks can be deceiving’.”

About her plans for bringing out a book she says, “I don’t really blog yet full-time, especially about my poetry — I did start off a blog like a fashion blog which would also feature my poetry and film reviews, but I haven’t really updated it much. And someday soon I hope to compile my poems into a book. I’ve even thought of a title — Flying with Broken Wings: A Poetic Journey. It will be an almost autobiographical endeavour in the best creative way I know possible — writing poetry.”