The voice that one comes across in Tanya Singh's slim collection of poems 'Blue is the colour I choose', is of defiance. Of someone who's had enough. Speak aloud a few verses from her collection and they'll sound like political rap songs aimed to take down the oppressive system with a 1-2 rhyme schemes. Sample this from a poem on Rohit Vemula, titled, 'Suicide and Stars' - 'He was the same age as I/ and while I will continue to grow older,/ he is trapped in time/ and will be the same age forever/ like immortals,/ only he is not.' Or this from a poem called 'Whispered Words' -
'I drag my body daily, puppeteered by
a very scared mind,
minding my distance from the metro doors
and standing behind the yellow lines of life
falling more than walking
walking where I should be running
carrying the weight of my cultureless past
tied to my ankles'
About her collection, Singh says, that it "represents a convergence of ideas of caste, gender, class and belonging. Experience of caste is neither isolated nor linear and hence these poems capture a range of emotions - from angst and helplessness to acceptance and hope."
