Saved by the arts!

In 2019, Bhavnani took her film Sindhustan, a documentary that shows the story of the largest migration in history through tattoos (right), across the globe. Now, she’s penned a powerful poem, “When a Sindhi Woman Dies, So Does a Book”

Hair stylist, filmmaker, and writer Sapna Bhavnani has taken the responsibility to preserve and promote her Sindhi culture. It's a task she doesn't take lightly. As she tells us, it's her way of understanding and presenting her identity.

In 2019, Bhavnani took her film Sindhustan, a documentary that shows the story of the largest migration in history through tattoos, across the globe. Now, she's penned a powerful poem, "When a Sindhi Woman Dies, So Does a Book", which has been selected to be a part of an art installation at the Poems from the Washing Lines event in Southwest London. The second season of this immersive festival, curated by Qisetna in partnership with Westminster Council, will see her work drape the Moat Garden's clotheslines - turning public space into a canvas of languages, legacies, and stories of belonging.

Poems from the Washing Lines project turns parks into an open-air exhibition. Poets, residents, and artists from diverse backgrounds submit odes to land, memory, migration, and identity. It's an exhibit that's a collective mosaic thoughtfully curated under themes like connection, displacement, and resilience.

Speaking about the poem, she says, "I had written it a while ago, but I submitted it here because this project is based on home and different identities. The poem starts with acknowledging what's on my legs, my tattoos. I have referred to my legs because I carry my land with me, specifically my feet, for the lack of roots." Bhavnani is no stranger to using personal narratives to explore deeper cultural threads. She points out the need to speak about Sindhis and their forced migration because, "It was the largest migration we have seen in history. We were very gentle about it. Now, slowly, it's being talked about." That's why, through this poem, she writes another chapter: one that honours lived experience. "I was very inspired by what I saw in Berlin and how Jews tell their story. They use all forms of art. Sindhis, unfortunately, don't fund the arts. They would rather build hospitals, colleges, which is great, but that does not pass down culture," she says.

It's also why this filmmaker moved towards the written form: "The point is to use different forms of art because people relate to different things," she says.

Whether she will witness her poem at the art installation in the UK in person is unclear to her as well. But Bhavanani hopes that the poem is not made too political. "If it's made political, it becomes a Hindu-Muslim issue," she says. Originally written in English by Bhavnani, the poem has several different translations given to her by different Sindhi writers. Another idea Bhavnani has is to submit all the iterations to be part of the installation.

Bhavnani's poem arrives during a moment of rediscovery for Sindhi culture. Many second-generation families, like hers, grew up without a deep connection to the language or culture. Young Sindhis were embarrassed by it too, as their identity was set in stereotypes. "It's why I made the film around tattoos - it was for the younger generation to see that their culture could be cool," says Bhavnani.

Her poem is a stand against erasure and for visibility. "My version of Sindh is different and evolving. But Sindh is not brick and mortar, it is its people. This is my Sindh, and you may have your own, even if you are a non-Sindhi who is just exploring."