I’ve always believed that conversations reveal more about people than introductions ever can.

Perhaps that’s why I write.

I’ve spent years writing about love—its beauty, its silences, its heartbreaks, and the strange ways it transforms us. My book may have been about love, but somewhere along the journey, I realized that love isn’t just between two people. It exists in friendships, in faith, in memories, in poetry, and sometimes, in the quiet conversations we don’t even realize are changing us.

One such conversation happened on a lazy Saturday evening.

The rain had just stopped, leaving behind that unmistakable fragrance of wet earth. Four of us cousins had gathered at our grandparents’ house after what felt like years of promising, “We’ll meet next weekend.”

There was ginger tea, a tin full of homemade biscuits, and for once, our phones lay forgotten on the table.

As expected, the conversation began exactly the way adult conversations usually do.

Work.

Deadlines.

Traffic.

Rising expenses.

Parents growing older.

Children growing up too quickly.

Life.

Then Aarav, the quiet philosopher of our family and an unapologetic admirer of Rumi, looked into his cup and smiled.

“You know,” he said, “Rumi once wrote,

‘Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.’“

The words settled over us like the drizzle that had just passed.

No one rushed to respond.

Not because we didn’t understand them.

But because we did.

Perhaps a little too well.

I found myself breaking the silence.

“That’s exactly what’s wrong with us,” I laughed. “We’re constantly trying to fix everyone and everything around us—our boss, our spouse, our children, politics, the economy. Yet we hardly spend ten honest minutes asking ourselves if we’re becoming kinder, calmer, or wiser.”

Prateek, forever the practical one, leaned back in his chair.

“I’ve always wondered why poetry does this.”

“What?” Aarav asked.

“It says in one sentence what self-help books take three hundred pages to explain.”

We all laughed.

But none of us disagreed.

Just then, Nisha, the youngest among us and someone who had recently discovered Indian poetry, stirred her tea thoughtfully.

“You know what amazes me?” she asked.

“We call poems literature. But were they ever just literature?”

That question changed the entire evening.

Aarav answered first.

“I don’t think poetry was ever written simply to entertain.”

He paused.

“Before people owned books, before universities existed, before history was documented the way we know it today, knowledge survived through poetry.”

I immediately thought of the countless verses I had heard as a child.

“The Vedas weren’t random prose,” I added.

“The Upanishads weren’t essays. Even our grandparents remembered verses they had never read from a book.”

Poetry wasn’t merely beautiful.

It was unforgettable.

Its rhythm carried wisdom from one generation to another.

Prateek couldn’t resist adding his own modern interpretation.

“So poetry was basically humanity’s first cloud storage.”

We burst into laughter.

“Trust you to explain ancient literature using technology,” Nisha teased.

“But he’s right,” Aarav smiled.

“If history tells us what happened, poetry tells us how it felt.”

That sentence stayed with me.

History records wars.

Poetry records grief.

History remembers kings.

Poetry remembers ordinary people.

History counts victories.

Poetry quietly asks what those victories cost.

As someone who writes, that thought lingered in my heart. Perhaps that is exactly why I have always been drawn to words—not to document events, but to preserve emotions before they disappear.

I looked around and asked,

“Have you ever noticed something?”

Everyone looked at me.

“We still use poetry every single day.”

They looked unconvinced, so I continued.

“We sing lullabies to babies.”

“We whisper prayers.”

“We chant mantras.”

“We sing the national anthem.”

“We celebrate weddings through songs.”

“We find comfort in lyrics after heartbreak.”

“When someone leaves this world, we search for beautiful words.”

“Whenever emotions become too large for ordinary language…”

“…we borrow poetry.”

No one interrupted.

Because somewhere, they knew it was true.

Nisha reached for another biscuit.

“I’ve been reading Kabir lately.”

“He never sounded like someone trying to impress readers.”

“He sounded like someone trying to wake people up.”

Aarav nodded immediately.

“And that’s true of Mirabai too.”

“She wasn’t writing to become famous.”

“She was simply pouring her devotion onto paper.”

“And Rabindranath Tagore,” I added, “was never just describing nature. He was exploring the relationship between human beings, nature, and the Divine.”

Prateek joined in.

“Even Harivansh Rai Bachchan wasn’t merely writing about wine in Madhushala.”

“He was writing about life.”

The more we spoke, the clearer it became.

Great poets were never merely arranging beautiful words.

They were trying to understand existence itself.

After a thoughtful silence, Prateek asked something I think many people secretly wonder.

“Does poetry actually change people?”

Aarav smiled.

“I don’t know if it changes people.”

“I think it changes the questions people ask.”

He looked at us before continuing.

“A novel tells you a story.”

“A textbook teaches you facts.”

“But a poem…”

“…makes you pause.”

“And if one poem makes you question your anger, your ego, your fears, your purpose…”

“…hasn’t it already changed something inside you?”

No one answered.

Because perhaps we all had a poem that had once quietly changed us.

The rain had started again.

Somewhere nearby, an old Hindi song drifted through the air, its lyrics sounding more like poetry than music.

Nisha looked outside.

“I think that’s why our spiritual teachers chose poetry.”

“They could have explained everything logically.”

“But instead…”

“…they sang.”

Immediately, names flowed through the conversation.

Guru Nanak.

Tulsidas.

Surdas.

Andal.

The sages of the Upanishads.

None of them relied only on arguments.

They relied on verses.

Perhaps because some truths are too vast to fit inside definitions.

Finally, Prateek asked the question that perhaps every non-reader has asked at least once.

“So…is poetry only for people who love literature?”

Aarav smiled gently.

“No.”

“It’s for anyone who has ever loved.”

“Lost.”

“Waited.”

“Forgiven.”

“Doubted.”

“Believed.”

“Questioned.”

“Or searched for themselves.”

As I listened to him, I couldn’t help but smile.

Perhaps that’s why I have always written.

Not because I wanted to become an author.

Not because I wanted readers.

But because writing has always helped me understand my own heart before expecting anyone else to understand it.

By the time our tea had gone cold and the biscuit tin was empty, I realized something.

We had begun the evening talking about poetry.

But somewhere along the way, we had unknowingly begun talking about ourselves.

Maybe that is poetry’s greatest gift.

It disguises itself as literature while quietly becoming a mirror.

It preserves history—not merely the history of kingdoms or civilizations, but the history of the human heart.

Centuries pass.

Empires rise and fall.

Technology changes.

Languages evolve.

Yet a verse written hundreds or even thousands of years ago can still make us stop, breathe, and whisper, “This is exactly how I feel.”

Perhaps that is why every generation rediscovers poetry.

Not because the poems change.

But because we do.

And maybe that is why I continue to write—not to offer answers, but to ask better questions. If my words can make even one reader pause, reflect, or feel a little less alone, then they have done exactly what the greatest poets before us hoped their verses would do.

After all, poetry has never just been about literature.

It has always been about being human.

“We do not read poems to escape our days;
We read them to discover forgotten ways.
For every verse we carry deep inside,
Becomes the compass on life’s changing tide.“