A police officer gets to observe all kinds of experiences of life, both sour and sweet, very closely while on duty. If, at times, he is fighting a battle to save lives trapped in the clutches of crime, then, at other times, he is assuring the general public that they can live their life without fear as policemen are deployed 24 hours to help them. If such an officer puts down all his experiences in words with a true heart, then this book will no doubt make for a great read.
One such book is Vah Ek Aur Mann (That Another Mind), written by 2001-batch IPS officer and currently Meerut range IG, Praveen Kumar. This book has recently been awarded the Vijaydev Narayan Sahi Award by the Uttar Pradesh Hindi Institute.
Indian Masterminds interacted with Mr. Praveen Kumar to get more information about his book.
LOVE AND RELATIONSHIPS
Mr. Kumar’s poems are not only a true expression of the happiness and sorrow of the common man, but are also the conductor of the courage to accept both happiness and sorrow with equanimity. He has compiled and presented the feelings and experiences arising in his ‘poet mind’ in the form of a poetry book.
In this poetry collection, the lasting sense of human relationships and love is everywhere. There is also a restrained reminder of all the heart touching experiences encountered. In the flow of time, the desire to control emotions, to talk to them, is constant in songs and poems, so the pain of being away from loved ones while being in the lap of business, is also more or less included in it.
BASED ON PERSONAL EXPERIENCES
The book is based on Mr. Kumar’s personal experiences. It has poems of different ages and types, expressing the feelings of his experiences from his engineering days till now. The poems show and express the many stages of his life so far. “I am fond of writing, but get less time to write because of work. Taking a few moments of leisure, this book has been written by threading the stories of my life into words,” he said.
“Neither claim nor plea, Why are you humiliated by arguing. Kept everything true as it was, This is neither a summary nor a detail.” These translated lines are from his book and truly depict the thoughts that he wanted to convey.
The book was published on 15 August 2021. While writing it, he learnt many aspects of Hindi, Sanskrit and Urdu languages very closely. During this time, he used to continuously share the poems of his book on social media, too.
VARIETY OF POEMS
There are a total of 112 poems in this poetry collection. There are poems composed on love, life, desire, dream, thirst, vision, night, reality, chatter of birds, silence, social media, transfer, bonfire, and even Covid. There are also sentimental poems on the popular words and symbols of the police department, like uniform, khaki and unclaimed goods.
WON AWARD
This book has recently been awarded the Vijaydev Narayan Sahi Award by the Uttar Pradesh Hindi Institute. Talking about it, Mr. Kumar said, “Any award is always welcome. It gives courage, it gives enthusiasm. It gives you the confidence that what you are doing is good and people are liking it. At the same time, the motivation to write better is also awakened.”
FUTURE
Being an IPS officer on a senior post, Mr. Kumar gets less time for writing. But, he still manages somehow and has already written two books, and has plans to write more. He said, “Right now I am working on two books. One is on law and the other is literature. The first book is on revenue law which you will get to read very soon. And, the second book is again a collection of my poetry only,” adding that his literary creations will continue in the future.
ABOUT PRAVEEN KUMAR
IG Praveen Kumar is a famous IPS officer of UP cadre. One aspect of his life is related to literature. Apart from being a strict police officer, he is fond of writing about law. He has been writing continuously since graduation. Mr. Kumar originally hails from Jalaun, UP. He had done engineering, BE (Hons.) Civil, from prestigious BITS Pilani. Then, he studied law as LLB. and LLM. too.
He has previously served as Superintendent of Police in many districts, such as Chandauli, Barabanki, Etawah, Muzaffarnagar, Gautam Buddha Nagar. He has also been DIG. Lucknow Range, IG Law and Order (UP).
