Ujjwala and I spent the first few days of February in Chitwan for a recci trip for Write to Speak. We visited schools and colleges there, scoured cafes and possible locations to do our poetry event, met educators and made new friends – our brotherly gang who have been helping us get around Chitwan: Bishal, Suzin, Masum and Rudeep.

Rudeep who is a busy engineer took out time to drive us around. Bishal was with us, coordinating and visiting schools and colleges even when he had exams going on. Suzin and Masum followed us on their two-wheelers whenever they could. We also met up with Bhupeen dai and Ishwar dai, local poets based in Chitwan. We were grateful that they were welcoming of us and excited about spoken word poetry.

Photo by Suzin

How places become more than a dot on the map. How we meet people who are kind enough to believe in poetry, to give us their time. They make me look forward to going back to this city where I never thought I would have a home or people I can go to.

Elizabeth Brewster in her poem ‘Where I come From’ says that ‘people are made of places’. Places are made of people too.