India, April 19 -- It was Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian poet and author, who had proclaimed that every beautiful poem is an act of resistance and so it was last week in the Delhi home of Chandigarh-bred artist Shumita Didi Sandhu where poets, performers and academicians across languages collected to speak of war and peace. The occasion, of course, was the second edition of an annual poetry do that took root in 2005, with a select reading in our city before moving to Delhi. Last year's meet was at the India International Centre and this time in her living room, transformed into a cosy hall, full of fragile but blooming Daisy flowers, accommodating some 26 poets, authors, artistes, activists and singers sitting cosily to call out for peace in the times of war. This informal platform for sharing poetry, thoughts and ideas is called "You are a poet", inspired by Nobel Prize winner American singer Bob Dylan who sang into the hearts of the listeners - I am a poet, and I know it, hope I don't blow it - in his 1964 album titled 'Another Side of Bob Dylan'. The occasion this time was different with an ongoing war and uncertain ceasefires. It is in such times that all poetry, art and music become acts of resistance. Storyteller and stage performer Kanika Aurora set the mood with a quote of Palestinian poet Marwan Makhoul: "In order for me to write poetry that isn't political, I must listen to the birds, the warplanes must be silent." The guest of honour was of course veteran Syeda Hameed, president of the National Federation of Indian Women and founder trustee of the Women's Initiative for Peace in South Asia. A woman of letters and culture, having penned an autobiography - A Drop in the Ocean - she recited a moving poem, of course not her own, on the plight of a little girl who loses all her kin in war. The motif of little girls dying was repeated in the poems of several other poets. Paintings by Neeraj Bakshi on the themes of war were also displayed on the occasion. Although the theme of the event was War and Peace, there was a very varied and soulful exploration of it by different poets. Roomy Naqvi, a professor of English in Jamia Millia Islamia University, looked back at the motif of the Karbala war, dating back to 680 AD in which the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, Husayn ibn Ali, was killed, to relate his poem in relation to the past: "I remember my words of long ago: Every age will have a Karbala, we will all witness it. There is no getting away, all we need is to keep strong. And let prayers drench us with piety. The participants at this very heart-felt gathering were united by a collective faith in the power of poetry, be it recited or sung. The verses of the great revolutionary poet of Urdu, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, our cherished poet of the East with Amritsar as his hometown, who spent more time behind the bars for his revolutionary fervour, were sung beautifully by Yaami Mubayi, including the all-time favourites 'Hum dekhenge' and 'Mujh se pehali si mohabbat mere na maang'. And there were others who could not sing but yet recited his verses. Prof Mohsin Raza Khan from department of international relations, Jindal University, Sonepat, recited another favourite by Faiz: "Kab haath mein tera haath nahi, kab yaad mein tera saath nahi"... with special emphasis on "Jis dhaj se koi maqtal me gaya, woh shaan salamat rehti hai, Yeh jaan to aani jaani hai, Is jaan ki koi baat nahi" (The glory with which one goes to the gallows matters, this life comes and goes so let it be so). Others recited the poignant poem by Majaz Lakhnavi "Ai gham-e-dil kya karoon" and of course our own Punjabi poet of Corbusier's city who wrote in Hindi, Kumar Vikal: Mujhe larhni hai ek choti si larhai ( I will fight only a small battle). He went on to say that he would not fight for a short leader who would throw the whole country into war to rise a few inches. Instead he said he would fight for a lowly clerk thrown out of a job for he was committed to fighting small battles for small people. The cherry on the cake, which had the slogan of 'No war, only peace', of this event curated with love and hope was the presence of a Persian scholar, Akhlaque Ahan, from Jawaharlal Nehru University. He took the poets back many centuries to the shared thoughts, culture and language to the ancient civilisations of Persia and India. Interestingly, many words we use unconsciously as our own or sing them in our much-loved Hindi cinema come from Persian like hava, fiza, yaad, mohabbat, chandani and even kursi and mez! The other significant participation was from Omid Babelian, a cultural Indologist with the Iran embassy in Delhi and his graceful partner Sara who were overjoyed to be a part of the prayers for peace with their Indian friends on a day that happened to be the seventh of Nowruz (The Iranian New Year). And now one bids adieu to this poets' meet of shared thoughts of love and loss from a poem by Babelian: "And love, is a red kite, burning against blue, clutched in the small hands of an innocent child, ...I gather the trembling strings, feel your pulse against the wind, you rise higher, higher still, fly my crimson heart, fly fly fly."...