Delhi poet Nayab Midha on her spoken-word journey

Nayab Midha’s Delhi includes antique jewellery at Gujarati Market, the steps of Agrasen Ki Baoli and university contests where, she says, an “average kid” began winning prizes for poem recitation.

The poet and storyteller moved to Delhi roughly 12 years ago, choosing it over Mumbai because she could find work in Delhi and could not afford Mumbai. She joined an event-management company, but after about a year and a half of gig work that she describes as toxic, she decided to work for herself.

Midha had been writing poems much earlier, in private diaries. She says she wrote five diary pages every night as a child, using the practice to work through loneliness she felt despite having friends. At Delhi University, contests gave that private writing an audience and a direction.

Between freestyle and verse

Midha describes her work as sitting between freestyle poetry and poems written in verse. She does not place herself within a traditional literary lineage, calling herself “the most unread poet”, but sees that in-between position as part of her voice.

“I always feel I am standing on two boats,” she said. She described herself as neither fully Gen Z nor millennial, and her poetry as neither deeply formal Hindi or Urdu verse nor entirely outside its influence.

Her first viral poem, *Muskurao*, remains closely associated with her work. Midha said artists cannot entirely decide which work stays with an audience, pointing to performers whose recognisable work has endured alongside later projects.

Delhi suited the urgency she wanted in her twenties, Midha said. Mumbai felt financially out of reach, while Delhi offered jobs and, at the time, a less crowded poetry circuit. “I think Delhi ke alawa mera kahin aur kaam chalega bhi nahin,” she said, adding that she would not tolerate too much calm.

On stage, Midha says her focus shifts to the audience: how a line lands, where listeners laugh and what might make someone cry. Performing, she said, changed a familiar complaint — “kitna bolti hai” — into “kitna achha bolti hai”.