Growing up, Santacruz-based Apeksha Nimesh Purohit was always surrounded by creativity because of her father being a writer. However, as life would have it, she developed an interest in engineering and went on to become an electronic engineer. While she embarked on her professional career and moved to Dubai in 1997, the writer in her must have been simmering even if it was in the form of one or two lines of Hindi poetry every other day in her notebook or her Notes app on the phone.
Getting busy with life and taking care of her children, the Mumbai mother worked hard as an electronic engineer for the next 10 years but didn`t have to work hard on poetry because that came natural to her. The Mumbai mother shares, “We came back to India in 2007 because my husband`s presence was needed to handle a family business my father-in-law had started earlier.”
The family being in the business of manufacturing fluid connectors, the 47-year-old spends a lot of her time today juggling her role handling human resources, administration, back office and logistics entirely, along with taking care of her two children but through it all she finds solace in Hindi poetry.
However, things changed during Covid-19 as she got a lot of free time. Purohit, whose pen name is Tina, her maternal name, shares, “I thought to myself rather than gossiping around, I should write poetry. My dad is basically a writer and right from our childhood he used to tell me to read story books, and it never hit me till then. It is like this, `Jab woh hona hota hai tabhi woh hota hai`, and engineering was such a tough journey while studying, it also took up a lot of my time. Language was never a focus. The skills may have been there in my subconscious mind but never highlighted during that time.”
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Juggling engineering and poetry
Even though Purohit continued to write her poetry, she never thought of it beyond the book. However, things changed during the Covid-19 pandemic. She shares, “During this time, my son used to play games on the phone. We hadn`t given it to him before because he was really young. However, once when he was playing, he came across my poetry on my Notes app and asked me, “Mamma, is this written by you or have you copy pasted from somewhere? I said no, it is written by me.”
Immediately impressed by her work, Purohit says being Gen-Z, her son told her to put it on YouTube. “I said no to him because I am writing it for myself, and I don`t want to put it anywhere,” Purohit adds. Giving her the much-needed encouragement, the 17-year-old, who was 11 years old at the time, finally convinced her to make videos and put it out on the video sharing platform. It`s been six years since then, and Purohit loves every bit of it putting out poetry on her channel Poetry & Beyond.
The whole experience has given Purohit, her son and elder daughter the chance to bond beyond their everyday life. “The entire process of giving the name to the channel, and shooting the video is done by my son. My daughter helps me get ready to face the camera and even designs the set using different corners of my house.” shares the Mumbaikar proudly. Today, she not only juggles her time being an electronic engineer but also moonlights as a Hindi poet, while also being a mother of two children whom she loves dearly. It is only poetic that they have helped Purohit rediscover her creative side.
