How Taro Sindik, a Hindi poet from Arunachal, went on to win the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar

After reading poems from Aksharo Ki Vinti, one would want to believe that the beauty of any language has its own course, it is not bound by borders, it does not belong only to those whose families birthed it. Languages are inherently nomadic, metamorphose, and travel to those embrace them. Taro winning the Hindi Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar from the picturesque Arunachal is testimony to that.

  Taro Sindik is an assistant professor at the department of Hindi at Donyi Polo Government College, Kamki, around 25 km away from Aalo in West Siang, Arunachal Pradesh. He volunteers with Vivekananda Kendra Arun Jyoti, a spiritual oriented mission service, as a Prant Sahityik Pramukh, and happens to be the education secretary at Arunachal Hindi Sansthan, which aims to promote Hindi language and literature in the State.

  He was born in Siyum village of Upper Subansiri district. After the early demise of his father the family moved to his mother’s native place, Sippi village. He spent most of his childhood at Sippi. Regular electricity, electronic appliances, and other urban amenities were rare commodities, like most remote villages of India, even to this day. He reminisces spending his time at the river bank, jungle, and paddy fields. Going to the school was just an excuse to step out in freedom. Unlike other students, he was very fond of Hindi, and has consistently scored the highest since primary school.

   Very intriguingly he also feels that his love for Hindi comics as a teenager made him love the language more and also helped him develop reading. He remembers hypnotically surrendering to the superpowers of Super Heroes like Commando Dhruva, Parmanu, Doga, and Nagaraj by Raj Comics. He believes that the radio and tape recorder also played very vital role in developing his Hindi vocabulary. He used to be obsessed about old Hindi, so much that he would be humming them on loop. Even now he loves to sing to his friends, family, and sometimes to himself sitting by a river or taking a night stroll.

  According to him, he does not remember being poetic in expressions at an early age, nor did he ever write an amateur poem as a teen, but he loved reading poetry throughout school and college. He has always found poetry more moving than prose. The first time he tried writing a poem was in the second semester of his Master’s degree in 2007 during literary competition that was held as a part of the Hindi Saptah. His then teacher Dr. Amrendra Tripathi coerced him to take part, and write a poem. He did. He wrote a poem titled Nirarthar Peeda, and recited it. To his sheer surprise he won the first prize. That was the first step of his journey in writing poetry. He felt empowered that he too can write a poem, and since then there has been no stopping.   

  He went on to write his first book of poems, Aksharo Ki Vinti which won the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar 2017. He never thought he would send for the Sahitya Akademi Award, leave alone the idea of winning it.  It was his teacher Prof. Nand Kishore Pandey who had suggested that he should send the book for the Yuva Akdemi Award. Not only is Taro is on one of the few Akademi awardees from the State, in the august company of awardees like Yeshi Dorjee Thongchi, and Mamamg Dai, but also one of the few in North East region to win the award for Hindi.

Before the Sahitya Akademi Award happened he was like any other poet, looking for a word of praise or critique like most young artists in history, unaware of what their art meant to their loved ones, to people and at times to themselves. His poetic journey has been secluded due to lack of readers, listeners, and art space to showcase in the region. Although Arunachal Pradesh loves Hindi so much that they have a unique Arunachali Hindi, but that is only limited to the spoken language.  To find many takers of Hindi poetry books is a farfetched idea, but people like Taro are paving the way for change.

Often when he would finish adding newer poems to his collection, he hoped that he would come across Hindi poetry laureates who would listen to his work and critique, but there was less possibility of that happening. He did upload his poems, like most, on Facebook, but one knows that kind of appreciations are good to keep going, you never know the direction. There were times when he felt dejected thinking if people would ever read his poems. He thought his audience would be limited to students and teachers of Hindi departments at colleges in Arunachal.  

   The accolade has in a way assured Taro the world is listening to his writing, and more importantly, poetry matters. Soon after the award people from many parts of India were curious as to who is this Hindi poet from North East. He has been interviewed in leading Hindi dailies like Dainik Jagran. He was also facilitated by the Arunachal Pradesh Literature Society for this distinct achievement. He is not sure that the Hindi poetry he is writing is going to bring any change or not, but definitely it points out that poetry is beyond languages. It will certainly encourage the youth in the region to delve into the vastness of Hindi poetry, and give them a new dream of becoming writers and poets.