Delhiwale: The Mad Poet of Hari Nagar

Ronak Bhasin goes by the pseudonym Pagalkavi. The ‘mad poet’ in his 20s has several typewriters and spends time looking for old stationery on which he pens his poems.

“I live with my parents and they don’t know I’m Pagalkavi (mad-poet),” he warns us. “In fact they would go pagal (mad) if they get to know.”

The poet’s parents had named him Ronak Bhasin but his readers on Instagram know him by his pseudonym Pagalkavi . (Mayank Austen Soofi / HT Photo)

One afternoon, we meet poet Pagalkavi in his apartment near Tanki Walla Park in West Delhi’s Hari Nagar.

The poet’s parents had named him Ronak Bhasin but his readers on Instagram know him by his pseudonym. In his 20s, Pagalkavi largely lives ‘outside’ the world. An engineering graduate, he has not tried to find a day job to the dismay of his father, a retired banker. Instead, he spends his days writing poems on old typewriters.

He has more than 20 typewriters. As he prefers to produce his poetry on aged musty sheets, he constantly rummages through shelves of stationery stores for forgotten bundles of yellowing pages.

Pagalkavi shares a poem with us.

DELHI IS NO TROY

Delhi, this city, doesn’t exist

Or it does, only as a compelling notion

Real enough to make fine lads

Run away from their far-off village homes

Delhi, this city, is just another thought

Floating inside the heads of some 20 million odd people

As they tow pull-carts in Fatehpuri,

And buy Avocados in Khan

Delhi, this city, isn’t always pretty

So it teaches you how to un-see

Because there’s so much to look at

And simply not enough time

Delhi is not the city of dreams

It wasn’t rebuilt seven times like Troy,

And it is not cursed either

Delhi, this city, doesn’t exist