#72 Yeh Dosti: Guff Gaff with Ujjwala Maharjan and Yukta Bajracharya

Boju Bajai

Poets Yukta Bajracharya and Ujjwala Maharjan join Boju Bajai to talk about their friendship, their collaborative partnership, and why we need to learn to communicate better with our friends. Ujjwala Maharjan is a poet and educator from Kathmandu, Nepal. She is one of the co-founders of Word Warriors, a poetry group leading the spoken word movement in Nepal since its inception in 2010. She believes in arts in education as a pathway to build a more empathetic and inclusive society. Working towards that goal, she is currently exploring trauma-informed practices and narrative approaches with artists and educators. Back in Nepal after doing her Masters in Education from the University of Pennsylvania, she is currently doing a few poetry and storytelling workshops, while working on her first book. Throughout the pandemic year, she has also been having fun schooling herself in the art of rap and hip-hop and experimenting with it, inspired by her former students in Philadelphia. Yukta Bajracharya (she/her) is a poet, educator and co-founder of Word Warriors, a spoken word poetry collective in Nepal, founded in 2010. She has performed poetry, facilitated spoken word poetry workshops and organized poetry slams and events all over Nepal. She is passionate about facilitating spaces where children and youth can explore their creativity and express themselves through writing and other forms of art. A recent graduate of the Erasmus Mundus Master’s in Children’s Literature, Media and Culture, Yukta's research interests include poetry, folklore, indigeneity and community-based arts education. Here are some poems Yukta and Ujjwala have collaborated on: Privilege: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAuXiEAx93M (a)nagarik: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnjE8RkWvyg&t=17s If you like our laugh and guff gaff, please do consider supporting our work on Patreon: www.patreon.com/bojubajai Follow @Bojubajai on social media for more laughs: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bojubajai/​​ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bojubajai​​ Twitter: https://twitter.com/BojuBajai​​ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNYRGvqtpi1aHAucXGcNWRw