“When two artists come together, they create soulful madness,” reads the Instagram page of Ruhani Fitoor. 

I, too, have a poet inside me and when I went through the page, I was mesmerized by the beauty and depth of the Hindi and Urdu poems. Another thing that caught my eye was the insightful illustrations that accompanied every poem.

चेहरे की हर झुर्री अलग उलझन बयाँ करती है, जिसके टुकड़े आज भी बटोर रहे है | कुछ जुड़ के भी अधूरे है, कुछ अधूरे पर पूरे है || Translation: Every wrinkle on the face has its own tale of dilemma, And its pieces are still being put together. Few are incomplete despite having all pieces and others complete even with missing ones. #ruhanifitoor #ruhani #fitoor #hindi #hindipoetry #kavita #indianpoetry #bombay #bombayart #bombaypoetry #artandillustration #art #poetry #illustration #jigsaw #jigsawpuzzle #jhurri #wrinkles #lifequotes

A photo posted by Ruhani Fitoor (@ruhani_fitoor) on Jan 18, 2016 at 1:49am PST

  Curious much, I contacted the brains behind Ruhani Fitoor, and to my delight, they agreed to an interview. The artists of the page, Roopal Jain, and Abhijit Kachhap, are graduates of St.Xavier’s College, Mumbai. Roopal is currently pursuing a Diploma in Illustration Design with Animation from NAFA, Singapore, and Abhijit is pursuing his M.A in Linguistics from the University of Mumbai. Here’s a sneak peek into our fun conversation with the two:   How did the idea of Ruhani Fitoor come? Roopal: Abhijit and I always wanted to create something together out of our mutual love for art and poetry. We began with a few other projects like a comic strip on Indian mythology, scenes from popular Indian literature and then finally decided on working on something more original.        So, who is the poet? Abhijit: I write a couple of lines and leave its visual interpretation to Roopal, we even do this the other way round. The whole point is if we can invoke the right emotion through one medium for the other artists or like-minded people without having to give much explanation. Also, we never enforce our line of thought on each other. Which Urdu word you would use to describe yourself? Roopal: Ruhani Fitoor (Divine Madness) describes us best. *smiles* What role do you think your page can play in spreading peace and love in India?      

जहाँ खड़े हैं, वहाँ से मंज़िल धुंधली लगती है, आख़िर ये मंज़िल है भी या बस एक सराब || Translation: My destiny seems hazy from where I stand today, Does it even exist or just a mirage. For more follow: @ruhani_fitoor https://m.facebook.com/RuhaniFitoor #ruhanifitoor #ruhani #fitoor #indianpoetry #artandillustration #art #poetry #bombaypoetry #urdupoetry #urdu #kavita #saraab #mirage #indianart #hindi #illustration A photo posted by Ruhani Fitoor (@ruhani_fitoor) on Oct 11, 2015 at 5:54am PDT

Roopal: The whole point of Ruhani Fitoor is to bring forth pieces of art and poetry to people, we don’t consciously try to give out a message. Our art does reflect our personal beliefs on certain things and people do recognize that at times and support the thought. But, we never started it with any particular objective or agenda.

We read that Ruhani Fitoor happened when two friends decided to collaborate out of boredom. What other amazing things do you do out of boredom?

Abhijit: LOL, well not exactly out of boredom but I write and compose songs.

Roopal: I am an illustrator (not out of boredom) Hehe!

Why do you think Hindi and Urdu became abandoned languages?

Abhijit: For any language to survive, you need good literature to support it. We have had many amazing writers of Hindi and Urdu in the past but very few in the past 30 odd years. And for any language to flourish, the responsibility is on the writers to create content for various age groups. Current Hindi and Urdu literature are for slightly elite classes (difficult to read and understand) which are read by a few, we need more people to write for kids, teenagers and youth in Hindi that they understand and speak today as language is bound to change/modify over time.

In your opinion, what is the way to make the promotion of Hindi and Urdu less politicized?

Roopal: We are not actively going out and promoting Urdu and Hindi. Both of us mutually love the languages and hence, want to share the love with everyone. We put translations at the end of our couplets so that people who are not familiar with the languages can also appreciate our art and thoughts.

What makes you speak the poetic language: love, sadness, self-reflection?

Abhijit: One of my favorite writers, Khushwant Singh said,

“ अगर आप उर्दू सीखना चाहते हैं तो इश्क़ कर लीजिये,

और अगर इश्क़ करना चाहते हैं तो उर्दू सीख लीजिये ||”

Do you have someone to whom you devote your poems to?

Roopal: Haha, No!

How can we bring love for Hindi and Urdu in youth that doesn’t consider it cool to speak?

Abhijit: The youth considers Urdu quite cool but not Hindi, but the fact is that Urdu and Hindi are practically the same languages with a difference of roughly 150 words (since other complex Urdu words are derived from Persian, Arabic). We have introduced a new set of Urdu calligraphy series to popularize beautiful words from the Urdu language.

Is there anything that you can express better in spoken language than in poems?

Abhijit: It’s difficult to explain the logic in poetry.

Devote one poem to our readers.

Abhijit: I would like to quote from my favorite poetry मधुशाला  by one of my most cherished poets Harivansh Rai Bachchan:

“ कभी न कण भर खाली  होगा,

लाख पिए, दो लाख पियें

पाठक गण हैं पढ़ने वाले

पुस्तक मेरी मधुशाला ||”

P.S.- You can like their page on Facebook, here, or follow them on Instagram, here.

Photo Source: Ruhani Fitoor Facebook

This article was first published in September, 2016.