Pavan Varma

Pavan Kumar Varma is a former Indian Foreign Service officer and was an adviser to the Chief Minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, with cabinet rank.^[2] Currently, he is the sitting member of parliament in Rajya Sabha representing Janata Dal (United).

He studied history at St. Stephen's College, Delhi, and at the University of Delhi.

Work

He joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1976. His career as a diplomat has seen him serve in several countries, including New York and Moscow. In New York, he was with India’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations. He also served as Executive Assistant to the Chairman of the Group of 77. In Moscow, he was the Director of the Jawaharlal Nehru Cultural Centre in the Indian Embassy. He has also been High Commissioner of India to Cyprus as well as Director of the Nehru Centre in London. His assignments in India include that of Press Secretary to the President of India, Spokesman in the Ministry of External Affairs, Joint Secretary for Africa and Director General of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, New Delhi, Indian Ambassador to Bhutan.

Varma took voluntary retirement from the Indian Foreign Service in 2012 to enter public life and was the Cultural Adviser to Shri Nitish Kumar the current Chief Minister of Bihar.

Bibliography

He is an author of many books. He has written fiction, non-fiction and translations.

Fiction

When Loss is Gain, his first work of fiction, was launched in January 2012. A story dealing with life and death, loss and gain, happiness and fulfillment, the physical and the spiritual, the rational and the inexplicable, and the perennial dialogue between dukkha or sorrow, the key word in Buddhism, and ananda or joy, which animates most of Hindu philosophy.

Non-fiction

Ghalib: The Man, The Times (Viking/Penguin 1989), his first book, was the highly successful and critically applauded biography of the Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib. This book has been translated into several Indian languages.

Havelis of Old Delhi, a much-discussed volume was launched by Span Tech, London, 1992 & Bookwise, India, 1999.

Krishna: The Playful Divine (Viking/Penguin 1993) became a best-seller on India’s most popular deity.

Yudhishtar and Draupadi (Viking/Penguin 1996), an epic poem on two of the central characters of the Mahabharata, still forms the backbone of several dramatic and philosophical productions.

The Great Indian Middle Class (Viking/Penguin 1998) was Pavan K. Varma’s first path-breaking book on a contemporary subject. Later translated into several Indian and foreign languages, the book was an instant bestseller, and remains the focus of discussion and debate even today. As a sequel to this, he, in association with journalist Renuka Khandekar, wrote Maximize Your Life: An Action Plan for the Indian Middle Class (Viking 2000).

Being Indian: The Truth About Why the 21st Century Will Be India’s (Viking/Penguin), a successful book followed in 2004. This was described by The Economist as “one of the most subtle recent attempts to analyse the continent-sized mosaic of India and simplify it for the general reader.” It was soon published by William Heinemann, in the United Kingdom, as Being Indian: Inside the Real India in March 2005. The Japanese, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian translations of this book were very well received. Being Indian has also had extremely successful runs in its Bengali, Hindi and Urdu editions.

Love and Lust: An Anthology of Erotic Literature from Ancient and Medieval India (HarperCollins), co-edited with Sandhya Mulchandani, was released in 2004.

Kama Sutra: The Art of Making Love to a Woman, his witty adptation of Vātsyāyana’s Kama Sutra, was published in 2007 with Roli Books. This has been translated into French and German.

Becoming Indian: The Unfinished Revolution of Culture and Identity (Penguin-Allen Lane), his latest book of non-fiction, was launched in February 2010. It deals with the pivotal issues of culture and identity for postcolonial societies, particularly in an age of aggressive globalization where co-option is the sub-text in the field of culture and takes forward his signature analysis from the issue of “Being Indian” to “Becoming Indian”. Its Hindi and French translations have already been published.

Translations

Selected Poems: Kaifi Azmi (Viking/Penguin 2001) is the English translation of the Urdu poems of Kaifi Azmi.

21 Poems (Viking/Penguin), a translation in English of the Hindi poems of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the then Prime Minister of India, was published in December 2001.

Selected Poems: Gulzar (Penguin) a translated collection of the poems of Gulzar, one of India’s best-known poets, came out in April 2008.

Neglected Poems, Pavan K. Varma’s second volume of translations of Gulzar’s poems was launched at the Jaipur Literary Festival in January 2012.

Gulzar’s translation of Pavan Varma’s epic poem "Yudhister and Draupadi" (with its published original in English) is also due for release in March 2012. Both books will be published by Penguin.

References