Two Women, Two Worlds, One New Voice in Hindustani Poetry
Two Women, Two Worlds, One New Voice in Hindustani Poetry
Zikr Uska returns to Pune on September 6, bringing Sunayana Kachroo Bhide and Monika Singh together for an evening of original women’s poetry.
Pune, September 01, 2026: From Boston’s technology and filmmaking circles to the administrative corridors of Maharashtra, Sunayana Kachroo Bhide and Monika Singh are bringing women’s original poetry to the centre stage.
For generations, the mushaira and Hindustani poetry stage have been associated largely with male voices. Women have always been an important part of the literary tradition, but relatively few have claimed a sustained space as writers and performers of their own original poetry.
Poetesses Sunayana Kachroo Bhide and Monika Singh are determined to change that.
Their answer is Zikr Uska, a poetry-and-music production they created in 2018 around original poetry by women. What makes the format distinctive is not simply the gender of its performers, but the conversation between them. Ghazals and nazms about love, longing, loss, desire, faith and womanhood flow from one poet to the other, creating an exchange rather than two separate recitals.
The idea began over coffee after the two connected through social media and discovered a shared passion for poetry. Since then, Zikr Uska has travelled across Pune, Delhi, Solapur and Boston. The production returns to Pune on September 6, with folk singer and performer Shounak Kulkarni joining the duo.
At its heart, Zikr Uska is about giving contemporary women a poetic vocabulary for experiences that often remain private.
From Kashmir to Boston
Kachroo Bhide’s own life crosses several worlds.
Raised in Kashmir, she moved to Pune for higher education before relocating to the United States in 2000. She spent more than two decades in technology and the corporate sector while steadily building another identity – as a poet, author, lyricist, filmmaker and creative producer.
Her poetry moves between Hindi, Urdu, Kashmiri and English, drawing on Kashmir, migration, memory, displacement, love and the experience of living between cultures.
She is a GRAMMY voter and has written lyrics for artists including Sonu Nigam, Shankar Mahadevan, Sunidhi Chauhan, Ali Sethi and Hariharan. She has also authored three books – Waqt Se Ppare, Sunny Side Up and The Book That Saved Me.
Her creative work extends to cinema. She is the co-writer of Songs of Paradise, inspired by the life of Kashmir’s legendary female playback singer Raj Begum. Her work has taken her to platforms including Harvard, the Indian Consulate in New York and Capitol Hill.
An Administrator with a Poet’s Pen
Singh inhabits a very different professional world.
As an Additional Collector in Ahilyanagar district, her days involve public administration, government responsibilities and the demands of a senior civil service career. Away from the official files, however, she has built a parallel literary life in Urdu.
The author of Seher Ke Khwaab, Lams and Baat Baqi Hai, Singh writes about love, spirituality, society and women’s experiences. Her engagement with Urdu is both creative and academic; she holds BA and MA degrees in the language.
The contrast between the two poets is striking – but it is also what gives Zikr Uska its character. One brings the perspective of a Kashmiri-born global professional and filmmaker; the other, that of a senior Indian administrator deeply rooted in Urdu’s literary tradition.
Together, they are not rejecting the ghazal or nazm. They are making room for new voices within them.
Perhaps that is the quiet revolution represented by Zikr Uska: not a dramatic attempt to overturn tradition, but a steady expansion of who gets to speak, what stories can be told and whose voice deserves the microphone.
One poem, one performance and one audience at a time.
