Tripurari Kumar  Sharma

I was born on March 4, 1986, at my maternal home—just as my father recorded in his diary. Days later, I arrived in Arout, a village in Samastipur, Bihar, where my early life unfolded in the fields, trees, and winds that whispered stories into my ears. I learned the basics of life in a government school; the rest, the seasons taught me. Spring breathed mustard blooms into my lungs. Summer ripened with fruits and koel songs. I floated on the Bagmati River, my feet trailing through its waters like roots seeking memory. Monsoon rains made me dance until the leaves dropped in surrender. Autumn arrived with loss. Winter followed, quiet and untranslatable.

 

Evenings in Arout felt like a woman you glimpse but never meet. As dusk descended, cows jingled home, herders hummed, fireflies blinked, radios played distant film songs. In the fading light, I hid my fears. On the mud patio, with a lantern and a jute sack, I studied and stared at the stars. I dreamed of a future I couldn’t yet name. Even the calf I played with seemed to understand my longings.

 

At thirteen, my father died. I remember his stillness like I remember my own skin. I saw him lying there—and saw myself too. A boy cried, another laughed. I became the third: a witness. I did not cry at the funeral. But something within me stopped living. That day, childhood ended.

I was sent to a new school, and for the first time, I lived in a hostel. My village, the river, fireflies, butterflies, and the animals I once loved were now far away—like a dream I couldn’t return to. In this unfamiliar place, I met wounded words whose meanings kept shifting. That’s where I first met loneliness. Even now, I imagine that if someone opened the door to my old room, they'd still hear the silence of my tears—known only to the plants in the garden, where I always sat instead of playing.

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In those quiet years, I began to imagine a girl I never spoke to—her face still flickers like moonlight in my memory. And then came the night of August 12, 2001. I woke suddenly, scribbled a few lines, and fell back asleep. Poetry had arrived, uninvited but permanent. That same night, I dreamed of becoming a film lyricist.

 

After the hostel, I moved to Patna—there was no other option. Living with my elder brothers brought new freedoms and new fights. We were all trying to grow up. But deep down, I stayed thirteen. A quiet boy still waits in the courtyard of my mind, hoping his father might return. In Patna, I failed my second year of school. That failure sent me to Delhi.

Coming to Delhi changed everything. It was more than a shift in geography—it was a shift in identity. At the University of Delhi, I immersed myself in Hindi and Urdu literature, and later pursued a Master’s in Mass Communication. North Campus became a kind of stage where I won dozens of trophies for my writing, saw my poems and stories published for the first time, and shared verses in mushairas with people who truly listened. I also fell in love—for the first time. That love, like the city, shaped my creative voice.

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I poured myself into Hindi and Maithili, letting ghazals and nazms pulse through my writing. Fiction gave form to the formless, helping me map the unspoken territories of my inner world. But some part of me always remained unsurrendered. That quiet fragment pulled me deeper into Urdu poetry, where I began to experiment more freely—trying to say what can’t quite be said.

 

Delhi wasn’t just a city I lived in; it was a turning point. Its libraries, languages, and literary crowds cracked me open. In that rich cacophony of voices, I found my own.

In January 2014, I arrived in Mumbai chasing a dream I had been nurturing since boyhood. Each day unfolded like a story—strange, beautiful, full of colors and contradictions. I kept losing and finding pieces of myself in its noise and silence. Now, a decade later, I look back and see how far that dream has carried me.

 

I’ve worked on half a dozen TV and web series, written lyrics for over forty singles, and crafted hundreds of jingles and thousands of ads. Each project taught me something—about form, emotion, pressure, and precision. The city turned me into a collaborator and a craftsman.

 

Three books found their way into the world—each a personal milestone. I’ve received awards and fellowships, had poems printed in textbooks, and even contributed Urdu dialogues to a feature film. Some projects failed, many never made it past drafts—but each one left behind a lesson in resilience and faith.

And through it all, my dream stayed intact—unshaken, quiet, burning. For 23 years, I carried it like a secret. Somewhere between sleep and dreams, it lived. And in 2024, it came true. A Wedding Story, my first film as a lyricist, released in theatres. Seeing my words come alive on the big screen wasn’t just fulfilling—it was a moment of arrival.

 

Mumbai gave me chaos and clarity. It taught me that dreams grow if you let them breathe, suffer, and survive. And mine did.

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Till the End

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I often think—what does it mean to arrive? Maybe there is no final destination, only small landings between longer flights. I’ve come this far, but the ache that began in a village by the Bagmati River still lives in me. The boy who stared at the stars, waiting for a father who wouldn’t return, still lingers beneath all the grown-up accomplishments.

 

Despite the recognition, books, films, and stages, I carry more questions than answers. What lasts? What matters? What can a poem undo? I'm still learning to sit with silence, to translate longing, and to write the unsayable.

 

I no longer chase fame—I chase clarity. I still believe in the slow readers, the quiet watchers, and the ones who return to language like home. My work is for them. And for that boy inside me, who still dreams beneath the same old sky.