The video -
We've had some gorgeous evenings these past few days, before the rains started. I shot this video from my balcony. And the poem, the gorgeous poem, by the poet Riya Roy.
On July 24th, The Nook, Riya’s peerless newsletter, came with this message -
Dearest,
Today is special. We are reveling in a double celebration.
I am writing the 100th letter to you. And, the nook completes its second tiny revolution around the sun on the 26th!
Yes, this is a birthday edition, which means we need to sit down with a cup of tea and take stock of what we have learned along the journey.
Have you read The Nook? If not, what a treat awaits you!!!
The Nook is one of the pioneer newsletters of India and one of the most popular!
It is the baby of Riya Roy, a writer, poet, activist, who stays in a hamlet in Bhutan, and spreads beauty in the world from there. Riya was a United Nations volunteer and was heading a global team of writers for iuventum’s media newsletter. She is an AIESEC and a Rotaract alumna. Currently, she works as the Content Executive at Wakefit.
I had first interacted with Riya when we, along with hundreds of poets all around the world, had undertaken to write 100-poems in an initiative called Airplane Poetry Movement in 2019-2020. Her poetry was incandescent, and it was a joy to read her.
I had interviewed Riya in September 2020 just after she had launched The Nook. She was very clear what she wanted The Nook to be, but there were a lot of things floating on a whim and a wish, just the way new things do.
After two years, and thousands of subscribers, her newsletter has become an unprecedented success. And she has been able to give it a unique character, choc-o-bloc as it is with art, music, poetry, quirky tales, Riya’s stories and a diary-like invocation of her emotional journey.
The Nook is wrapped in immeasurable grace, and is a weekend sundrop.
I caught up with Riya a few days back, to talk to her about her future plans for The Nook, and what life portended. Here is an excerpted part of my interaction -
Riya, you’d started The Nook with a vision. How much of it have you achieved?
The Nook was created during the first phase of the pandemic. It was meant to be a comforting corner for myself where all other seekers of a nook were more than welcome to stay.
The Nook was meant to be a snug den where I could learn the language of delight and practice the art of taking things easy. It was supposed to be a nest from the storms of my heart, and boy, are those storms frequent!
Over the last 2 years (my snuggery turns 2 on the 26th!), The Nook has served all of this for me and more. It has been a teacher shaping my identity in the grand scheme of things.
For me, what I want to make of this one life, is a constant quest. Every week, when I sit down to write The Nook, I come closer to the question. And maybe along the journey, as Rilke would put it, I will “gradually, without noticing it, live into the answer”.
What would it be if you were to summarize The Nook’s DNA?
The Nook is a gathering of everything I have felt and thought (in that order!) throughout the week. As such, it is a testament to what it means to be human. It holds enough space for all emotions, whether it is delight or anger, curiosity or envy, gratitude or resentment.
Without questioning the legitimacy of emotions, The Nook embraces every twig to create a bed where one can rest at the end of an entire week of being human.
What kind of feedback have you gotten from your readers?
I think the kindest people on the internet read The Nook.
They write letters to me, every word a hug from across the screen. They send in questions about the most trivial and profound worries that keep them up at night. Not with the hope that I might solve them (they are the kindest and smartest people on the internet!), but as an attestation of their humanity. Because only when we show each other our madnesses can we truly bond.
My readers have supported me with their words, by buying me books, making contributions, and introducing me to their communities like what you are doing with this interview for The Uncuts. :) And for every way that my readers have supported me, my gratitude knows no bounds.
The universe of newsletters has exploded in these past couple of years. Any favorites you would like to mention? And why do you love them?
Yes! Newsletter writing welcomes you into a slow way of living. For it to truly capture what you wish for it to capture, it cannot be hurried. And I think people are really digging that.
Not only writing a newsletter but even reading it invites you to slow down, much like a breathwork exercise.
I subscribe to all kinds of newsletters that quench various interests. For marketing, I read Refind, D2C Pulse, Finshots, Ann Handley’s Total Annarchy, and Content Folks. For productivity strategies, I read NESS Labs and James Clear’s 3-2-1. For poetry, I read The Alipore Post. For curiosity and my love for beauty, I read The Uncuts and The Isolation Journals.
I would like to make a special mention of The Uncuts. Every week, I have no idea what is waiting for me in an Uncuts edition. It could be a love letter to buildings, an honest exploration of death, a poem celebrating a lover’s body with abandon, or a devotional to a singer whose work has defined how generations have thought about love, life, and everything in between. I take massive delight in this newsletter for its freshness and its humanness. :)
How goes your poetry?
For my poetry, I am learning to walk again. It has been 1074 excruciating days since I wrote my last poem.
Poetry seems to be cross with me for having ignored her this long. And so she is making it unbelievably difficult for me to win back her love.
To coax her, I have been writing laundry list verses (poem appetizers, if you may!). Maybe at some point, she will give in and be my Humsafar once more. :)
A couple of your poems to end with.
before i fell in love with you i fell in love with your hands
before i fell in love with you
i fell in love with your hands –
the way they float
like wild hyacinths in the wind
when you talk about poetry,
the way they fern around mine
when we've cut open
words like wounds,
the way they fold
and drop heavy on my thighs,
your palms caressing my skin
like it was the velvet
on a deer's back,
which makes me think
that may be
your hands fell in love with me
way before you did –
how they touch the back of my neck
soft moonlight on grass,
how they hold the bones of my face
like a forest sticking to its trees
before collapsing in a wave,
the way they roam
on the back of my arms
parting my skin into where you've been
and where you've not,
making me wonder
that our hands may have met
much before we did –
they may have pawed at the same window,
ruined the leaves of the same tree,
put a coin for a cause neither of us believed in,
they may have walked into our poems
and must have done things
that are hard to pronounce,
like carried goodbyes of old lovers
and fragrances
of flowers long dropped.
And Then The Thunder Said
And then the thunder said:
Was I too late?
The silence that paves my way
And the silence that I leave behind,
Does it get too lonely there?
Think of one as a lull,
And the other, a lullaby, my love,
Without worrying much
Of what comes first.
In that flash,
Wait for me to roar again
From the craw of this night
That saves in its coffers
Secret sorrows and unsung fears.
Hear me moan from memory,
And lament for what’s out-of-place,
It doesn’t matter
If my tongue feels foreign
To your ears.
I am an admonition too late
A loud shuffling
Of the light’s leaving feet,
Climbing down the bones of trees
And filling the lungs of streets.
Let the tremor settle in, my dear,
Let it find a home under your skin.
Follow Riya on Instagram and subscribe to The Nook here -
Hear her interview -
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