Hello, Jo Tum Kaho

Prashant V Shrivastava
Prashant V Shrivastava

From the Author

Ever since I began penning poetry, the idea of writing a book never crossed
my mind. I had a firm conviction that books never fascinate the audience as
much as other mediums do. Following that notion, I kept publishing my poems on multiple platforms like shayarana.com, storrymirror.com, or in the royal harbinger newspaper, but successfully avoided the thought of a book.

My thought sustained for more than 19 years. One fine day in 2018, I found
an old poetry book when my wife Shipra gifted me a huge book rack for my study.
I was excited to place all my books there, and the book of Meer’s poetry came across me, which I had won as a reward more than 15 years ago in a competition.

I read that book again, and a fresh tide of thoughts left my brain all
drenched with poetic mist. I created a document and named it Musafir Ki NazmeiN. I added my first poetry and then closed the document. The next day, I had another fine thought, and this time, instead of putting it in my phone’s notes app, I typed it in Hindi using the Google Input tools. It still was not convincing thought to add another 48 or 98 poems. Then I refreshed the index, and there I saw two entries. Now, I decided to add one poem daily. Something really divine happened and was able to maintain the daily target until I reached 61 lyrics.

The title of the book changed from Musafir Ki NAzmeiN to ‘Jo Tum Kaho’ based on its maiden poetry, which I had written for Shipra years ago.

Then came another pause which lasted around a fortnight. Once again, some powerful thought compelled me to add the 62nd poem. And then I never looked back and conquered the target of 100.

It took me a few weeks to see which publisher can do justice with my emotions. I am glad I chose a company that helped me end to end, and now I have this book.

Watch this space for some exciting stories around each poem!!

Prashant!

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