About Amaira

I come from a family of strong independent women, backed by free thinking men. My great grandmother, even after becoming a widow, had completed her masters degree and devoted her free time to educating women from the neighbourhood.

My avant-garde grandfather had instantly fallen in love with the rebellious village belle, my grandmother, a fearless woman with deep blue eyes, who accompanied him to the city to follow her dreams, learnt how to drive and became an independent working woman.

My mother was a farm princess, who grew up driving tractors and taming wild buffaloes in the village. When she came to the city, she brought along her fighting spirit and mastered every creative art and craft she was interested in. Through her own example she taught me and my sister to follow our bliss and work towards financial independence using our own set of talents and skills. Our father never told us not to do something just because we are girls. He has sown the seeds of equality and an evolved thought process, opening our minds to world cinema, contemporary art and thinking outside the box. My sister has always been unapologetically herself when it comes to living life on her own terms.   

All these wonderful women in my life, who have redefined beauty in their own way, have gone in the making of  my upcoming book of poems, "Amaira, the little woman."

“Amaira” was the name that I had shortlisted for a daughter. But I was gifted with two boys. Somewhere, this name kept lingering in my head, trying to find its meaning in my life. It's through the sketches of a girl that I kept drawing in my vacant times that blossomed one by one into different forms of womanhood, that Amaira found her way out again! While weaving poetry around those lines, it was indeed a Eureka moment, when I said to myself, “That’s Amaira”!...my unborn daughter, who was destined to take birth in a different avatar!

Amaira comes to life, bathed in the creative colours of my mind. But most of all, her love for flowers is what I’ve seen in my mother’s eyes, when I used to accompany her to collect flowers for her professional flower decoration projects. The artistry in my mother’s hands is what I believe has helped me sculpt Amaira into these graceful forms, just like her name, meaning forever beautiful.

Amaira is a dreamer. She has a close relationship with nature. As a landscape architect by profession, through this project, I have taken my love for landscape elements, flowers, birds and butterflies, combined with my deep rooted care for all those women, who, in some way, are burdened and imprisoned in an invisible cage of helplessness, and used my poetic voice as an expression of freedom, in turn to celebrate the freedom of expression!  Amaira thus becomes a metaphor for everything a woman can dream to be!

Amaira carries within her the joy that art and poetry bring to my life. Using this medium, she reconnects with nature, with the wind in her hair and wings outstretched. With no inhibitions, she explores the land of dreams, celebrates each stage along the journey, keeping the inner child alive and curious, finally till she merges back to the earth. Through Amaira, I have found the “Meaning in my Making” to stir connections with my inner self, my spiritual side and with nature.

*I express deep gratitude to the book “The Meaning in the Making” by Sean Tucker for helping me find the meaning in the making of my upcoming poetry book, Amaira, the little woman.

:: First Sample Print ::