Arundhathi Subramaniam is a poet and seeker – though not always in that order. She has worked over the years as arts journalist, curator and poetry editor. As poet, she has published four books of poetry, most recently When God is a Traveller (published by HarperCollins). Her prose works include the bestselling biography of a contemporary mystic, Sadhguru: More Than A Life. As editor, her books include Another Country (a Sahitya Akademi anthology on contemporary Indian poetry in English), Pilgrim’s India (a book on sacred journeys), and Confronting Love (an anthology of love poems co-edited with Jerry Pinto). She divides her time between Bombay/ Mumbai and a yoga centre in Coimbatore.
Why poetry? Why not a more glamorous genre like fiction? Because poetry is the shortest and most direct verbal route to the self that she knows. Because it is the art of the murmured voice. Because it is verbal choreography, language that dances rather than walks. Because it is about bringing question marks rather than full stops into one’s life. Because of its suddenness, its heightened pressure cooker language, its toxic shock clarity, its verbal single maltness. Because it allows for a startling confrontation of self with self.