Priya Malik on her journey, creative expression, and what we need to make this world a better place

The spoken word poet and storyteller is #MoreThanPretty as she gives us a sneak peek into her growing up years and what inspires her.

Cosmo: You began writing at the age of 12. Tell us about your journey as a writer…as a performer.  

Priya Malik: “I have always been a performer…I used to recite poetry standing on top of coffee and dining tables, and my teachers picked up on that. The first time I was behind the microphone, I was nine years old. I then started writing my own poems, and I eventually realised that I could recite them too. I never looked at it as a profession, and I think that’s why it became exactly that. 

When you do something out of sheer love, it finds a way to love you back. That’s how my journey with poetry has been—I never did it for fame, career, or as a source to pay bills. It came from a place of pure love.” 

C: Where do you find your creative inspiration from?

PM: “I write a lot of poems on the elements I observe—my own thoughts and ideas and relationships. However, the three things I focus on heavily are love, relationships, and social issues that I strongly resonate with.”

C: As a child, were you slightly different from the people you were surrounded by?

PM: “I think I have always been a misfit. However, I don't like to call myself one, because the term has a negative connotation attached to it. But to outsiders, I seemed like a kid who was always in her own world, reading books, doing her thing… An old soul in the body of a child. But reading opened up a new world for me, which didn't exist for everybody. I was reading novels meant for 12-year-old kids at the age of seven. And because of the kind of books I was reading, I had grown up faster than other children my age. I liked the fact that my childhood was different from others. I feel like I was always a loner, just reading books in solitude…and I am like that even today.”

C: Tell us about the poets you love…

PM: “I discovered Amrita Pritamji very late in life…and that’s definitely one of my biggest regrets. But I guess better late than never! Her journey and poetry and novels have inspired me to a great degree. I grew up with a lot of classic poets like [William] Wordsworth and [Percy Bysshe] Shelly and then I started exploring Hindi literature and that changed the game for me. I was suddenly reading Nirala and Mahadevi Varma, and then I discovered Amrita Pritamji. And when I moved back to India and everything started falling in place…”

C: Tell us, Priya, what needs to change to make this world a better place?

PM: “We need equality in every sector, and not just in terms of gender and sexuality. Discrimination of any kind needs to be banished.”

C: What does the word pretty mean to you?

PM: “The word ‘pretty’ holds a new meaning for me now—its definition has changed for me in the last couple of years. Young Priya would have attributed physical features to being pretty, but now, being pretty means being comfortable, intelligent, and being okay with who you are and who you have been. That’s what pretty means to me.”