Picture this.
A classroom in Pune.
20 soldiers — each one differently-abled, each one carrying a story most of us will never fully understand.
And in front of them?
Not a weapon. Not a drill.
A poem. ✍️
It started in July 2025.
Queen Mary's Technical Institute — the only institute in India training disabled soldiers since 1917 — hosted its first ever Kavi Sammelan.
It was supposed to be just a cultural evening.
Instead, something quietly shifted.
Soldiers who came to listen… started to write.
Soldiers who came to watch… started to perform.
One event became a habit. A habit became a community.
Last month, Healing Verses (by KavitaKAFE) and Saksham Sahitya Kala Manch returned to QMTI with a 90-minute workshop.
The title said it all: From Page to Stage.
The goal wasn't perfection.
It was presence.
The soldiers were taught the PPPEC formula:
Five pillars. One simple idea — a poem isn't spoken. It's lived.
Participant Ranjeet Kumar Podar said something that hits differently:
"Even a simple poem can reach the heart of the readers and audience if it has depth and essence."
Another soldier, Kishor Pawar, called it invigorating. Thought-provoking.
These aren't lines from a literature student.
These are men who served the country — now learning that a pause can carry as much weight as a salute. ⚡
Garima Mishra, founder of KavitaKAFE, said yes the moment Col Dr Vasant Ballewar called.
Her reason was personal.
Her father was an army officer too.
And for the soldiers, poetry has become something rehab manuals rarely promise:
We usually celebrate soldiers for what they did on the battlefield.
This story is about what they're discovering off it.
That strength doesn't always sound like a war cry.
Sometimes it sounds like a verse — read slowly, in a Pune classroom, by someone the world had quietly stopped listening to.
Until now.
That's all for now!
