There is something wonderfully disarming about speaking to Nayab Midha. For someone who has built a career performing before thousands, she still talks about the stage with the excitement of someone discovering it for the first time. “I like to say I was born on stage,” Nayab says. That joy is at the heart of Rajkumari, her two-and-a-half hour spoken word production that comes to Bengaluru as part of a 22-city India tour. 

Over the past few years, the show has travelled from intimate venues in India to sold-out performances across the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Yet, for Nayab, the show’s greatest success is not measured in ticket sales or sold-out auditoriums, but in the conversations that happen after the curtains fall.

The making of Rajkumari

The emotional connection that lies at the core of Rajkumari is inspired by the stories women are told while growing up. The show gently questions the fairytales that promise the rescuing of a princess and happy endings. Growing up in a small town in Rajasthan, Nayab watched the women around her navigate dreams, responsibilities and expectations that rarely resembled the stories she had been raised on. Those observations gradually found their way into her heart and her writing. 

“We’re told these stories where a princess is waiting for a prince,“ she reflects. “But then you grow up and realise life is far more complicated; you realise no prince is coming. Women have to build their own lives.”

The show itself has transformed over time. What began as The Nayab Show eventually grew into Rajkumari, changing with every performance. She says, “The poems might stay the same, but the conversations are different. The audience is different. The laughter changes; silences change.“

The gift of poetry

If poetry gave audiences a place to feel seen, it also gave Nayab something deeply personal. Long before she became a spoken word artist, she remembers being someone who did not know what she was meant to do. 

“I don’t even remember who I was before poetry,” she admits. “It gave me an identity. I had something that was mine.”

As for her show in Bengaluru, Nayab confesses she has a small tradition that has little to do with poetry. Every visit includes a definite stop at Meghna Biryani. But beyond that, she also carries a genuine affection for the city’s audiences. “Bengaluru has always embraced independent artistes,” she says.

When Rajkumari arrives at MLR Convention Centre this weekend, audiences can expect more than an evening of poetry. Over the span of the show, Nayab blends spoken word, storytelling, humour, and music into a performance that asks difficult questions with a remarkable tenderness. And if her experience is anything to go by, audiences will not only leave with favourite verses, but also with the comforting feeling that someone, somewhere, has quietly put their own story into words. 

Rajkumari by Nayab Midha will be presented at MLR Convention Centre, Whitefield, on June 28 at 6pm. Tickets available on Bookmyshow.