"School girls start spoken word platform in Lucknow

“Three of us were sitting in a cafe when we came up with the idea of our initiative and wrote it out on tissue paper. We enjoyed reading and writing but missed a platform for spoken word poetry and stand-up comedy. We wanted to provide a space where youngsters like us could express themselves. In this moment, we came up with the concept of Perfart, which stands for Performance Art.

When most of our classmates and friends were enjoying their summer vacations, we - Rishbha, Upasana and I (Mitali) - were busy designing our first show. Our parents asked us if we really wanted to spend our vacation this way. We told them that we definitely wanted to try this. The next big question was money. We put our pocket money on the table, but it wasn’t enough. So, we thought of other innovative ways to cut down on cost. We approached a cafe for venue partnership and it came on board. We spent a week decorating our venue.

For our first show we had around 30 performers and an audience of almost 100 people. For us, it was a great success. People shared their happiness, pain and dreams in the form of poetry. Some youngsters also opened their heart and shared real stories of love and hurt. We realised that people actually need this kind of platform. We organised our second meet-up at the same place in the following week. This was also received well.

Now, the three of us are in three different cities pursuing our studies, but it doesn’t affect our enthusiasm at all. We are exploring the ‘Perfart’ in our current cities, including Lucknow. During Dussehra holidays, we plan to have our third show in Lucknow.

People often ask us how we plan to manage our initiative along with our studies and future careers. We tell them this is just the beginning.”