An evocative evening of poetry, performance and intellectual dialogue explored women, memory, autonomy and the making of the inner self
New Delhi [India], August 3: Acclaimed bestseller author and poet Dr. Sazina Khan launched her latest poetry collection, She Walked Anyway, at Casuarina Hall, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. The book launch was followed by a compelling panel discussion titled “Walking Through Storms: Women, Memory and the Making of the Inner Self.”
The evening brought together distinguished voices from literature, performance and the creative arts. Prof. (Dr.) K. G. Suresh, Director of India Habitat Centre, graced the occasion as Chief Guest. The panel featured Oroon Das, designer, curator and theatre artist, and Dr. Gilles Chuyen, director, choreographer, dancer and actor. The discussion was moderated by acclaimed writer, poet and social development leader Meera Khanna, Trustee and President of The Guild for Service.
She Walked Anyway emerged as a collection rooted in the quiet yet formidable architecture of endurance. Through poems such as “Unannounced Becoming,” “Permissionless,” “Grace, Unrequested” and “I Didn’t Ask for Light,” Dr. Khan examined what it meant to continue moving when permission, recognition and certainty remained absent. Walking became more than physical movement; it emerged as an intimate act of self-authorship and a form of unpermitted defiance against the expectations that sought to define, contain or diminish an individual.
Speaking about the collection, Dr. Khan said:
“To walk anyway is not always to rebel loudly. Sometimes, it is simply to refuse disappearance. It is the decision to continue becoming, even when the world has not granted its approval. These poems inhabit that quiet territory where vulnerability does not negate strength, grief does not erase dignity, and survival gradually transforms into self-possession.”
Written as a gift for Dr. Khan’s daughter, Daneen, the collection carried profound generational significance. Although many of the poems arose from experiences of grief, struggle and emotional displacement, the inheritance they offered was not one of suffering alone. Instead, the book sought to bequeath the dignity acquired through adversity—the knowledge that autonomy could be cultivated even within circumstances that appeared to have been determined by others.
The panel discussion examined whether the collection’s recurring images of walking, thresholds, shedding permissions and unannounced becoming constituted a narrative progression or a series of variations on a central philosophical concern. It also explored how She Walked Anyway extended the meditations on silence and unwitnessed courage that had appeared in Dr. Khan’s earlier work, Where Silence Heals.
A central question of the evening was whether “walking without permission” remained a sufficiently radical metaphor in 2026. The panellists considered whether the collection moved beyond familiar feminist tropes through images such as “I shed permissions like borrowed skin” and “thresholds exist to be overruled”—lines that transformed personal emancipation into an expansive assertion of human autonomy.
Although the poems did not explicitly position themselves as declarations against gender injustice, they articulated an unmistakable ethical proposition: dignity was inseparable from equality, and equality remained incomplete without autonomy. The conversation therefore considered whether poetic restraint strengthened the collection’s feminist resonance or risked softening the urgency of the realities it addressed.
The programme also included a performative interpretation of “I Didn’t Ask for Light,” with Oroon Das reading the poem and Dr. Gilles Chuyen offering an emotive, embodied response. The presentation dissolved the boundary between written memory and lived experience, allowing the audience to enter the emotional landscape of the poem rather than merely observe it.
The discussion further explored how a poem born from one person’s memory could awaken memories within the reader. It reflected upon the manner in which the reader ceased to remain separate from the poem and instead became part of its emotional and interpretative world, alongside the poet.
The collection’s rapid ascent to No. 1 across three Amazon categories reflected a growing readership for poetry that spoke simultaneously to healing, resilience and self-determination. Its reception suggested that contemporary audiences were seeking writing that did not romanticise suffering, but instead acknowledged the difficult and often invisible work through which individuals reclaimed their lives.
The launch proved to be an evening of words, wisdom and women’s stories—an occasion where poetry became remembrance, performance became interpretation and walking became a declaration of continued existence.
Event Details
Book: She Walked Anyway: A Collection of Poems
Author: Dr. Sazina Khan
Date: 2 August 2026
Venue: Casuarina Hall, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi
Discussion: Walking Through Storms: Women, Memory and the Making of the Inner Self
Chief Guest: Prof. (Dr.) K. G. Suresh
Moderator: Meera Khanna
Panellists: Oroon Das and Dr. Gilles Chuyen
For media enquiries, interview requests and further information:
Dr. Sazina Khan
sazinak@yahoo.com
+971556935110
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