Nepali Times on poet-diplomat Abhay K

T. S. Eliot Prize winner poet George Szirtes on Abhay K's 'Seduction of Delhi'

 T. S. Eliot Prize winner poet George Szirtes on Abhay K's 'The Seduction of Delhi'

'One may visit a city and one may live in it. To experience it as a presence and a history is more than either, and to experience it as poetry is sublime. Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities shows us Venice in many fantastical transformations. Abhay K. Kumar’s Seduction of Delhi is not so much a city transformed as tenderly opened up and invited to commune with the world around it in both time and place. So, in the Places section of the book, the poem on Nehru Park presents us with a ‘blue moon in full bloom / birds transmuting into humans’ on a spot where ‘Nehru is in dialogue with Lenin / and the universe’ while among the Portraits we meet the ubiquitous auto rickshaws, each ‘a triangle-on wheels’ that criss-crosses Delhi like ‘a kite soaring against the wind’ that carries the city on its wings.

The transformations are gentle and humane: the history is deep and lightly worn. This is a beautiful way to be introduced to a great city as both specific and essence.'

-George Szirtes

Life in the Indian Foreign Service

-Abhay K.

Indian Foreign Service (IFS) is unlike any other Civil Service such as the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) or the Indian Police Service (IPS). An Indian Foreign Service officer spends most of his/her time abroad ( two-third of his/her career) and only one third of career in India at the headquarters of the Ministry of External Affairs(MEA) in New Delhi.

After joining the Indian Foreign Service, for which one has to be generally at the top of the ranking order in Civil Services Examination (CSE) conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) of India, one is sent to the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) in Mussorie for training for a period of three months where he/she is known as Foreign Service Probationer/ Officer Trainee. 

After completing three months of training, comprising training in multiple disciplines including a foreign language, horse riding and trekking in theHimalayas, a Foreign Service Probationer/Officer trainee moves to the Foreign Service Institute located in New Delhi for further training.

At the Foreign Service Institute in New Delhi, which is located on Baba Gangnath Marg near Jawaharlal University (JNU) campus, a Foreign Service Probationer undergoes training for a year in modules of International Relations, Indian Foreign Service Pay, Leave and Compensatory Allowances (IFS-PLCA) Rules andForeign Trade. One also travels to  the neighbouring South Asian countries or the United Nations to understand the functioning of an Indian mission. An officer-trainee undergoes attachments with the Army, Navy and the Air Force, with the district and the state administration as well as the corporate sector. 

The idea of a SAARC Anthem in the largest circulating English Dalies of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh

Celebrating South Asianess through a South Asian Song

Abhay K. on the need of a poetry fest for South Asia in Kantipur

Poets Arundhathi Subramaniam & Abhay K. at the South Asian Poetry Festival 2013 in Kathmandu

Farooq Abdullah & Abhay K. at Dwarika in Kathmandu

Ten Key Moments in English Language Poetry in 2013 (As per Eyewear)

1. GEOFFREY HILL PUBLISHES HIS COLLECTED POEMS.

2. SEAMUS HEANEY DIES.

3. HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN INVITES HUNDREDS OF POETS TO BUCKINGHAM PALACE.

4. POETRY MAGAZINE IN AMERICA GETS A NEW EDITOR.

5. CHARLES BERNSTEIN PUBLISHES RECALCULATING.

6. HELEN MORT SHORTLISTED FOR TS ELIOT PRIZE AND THE COSTA.

7. PATRICIA SMITH WINS THE LENORE MARSHALL POETRY PRIZE.

8. MATTHEW DICKMAN ARRIVES IN UK ON TWO LEADING MAGAZINE COVERS IN ONE MONTH.

9. DAVID SHOOK TRIES TO GET A POETRY DRONE OFF THE GROUND.

10. EMILY BERRY DEBUTS WITH FABER.

Bizarre Poets

Bizarre Poets#1- William McGonagall read his poems while the crowd was permitted to pelt him with eggs, flour, herrings, potatoes and stale bread. For this, he received fifteen shillings a night. McGonagall seemed happy with this arrangement, but the events became so raucous that the city magistrates were forced to put a ban on them.

Bizarre Poets#2 On 2 March 1882, Roderick Maclean, a disgruntled poet apparently offended by Queen Victoria's refusal to accept one of his poems, shot at the Queen as her carriage left Windsor railway station.

Abhay K reading his poems at historical Patan Durbar Sqaure

Pic by Prakash Subedi

Abhay K. pens SAARC Anthem

Poet-diplomat Abhay K. on the need of a SAARC Anthem in the Kathmandu Post

Abhay K. & Arundhati Subramaniam at South Asian Poetry Festival 2013, Kathmandu

Poets at the South Asian Poetry Festival: Abhay K, Arundhathi Subramaniam, Bairangi Kaila, Bhuwan Dhungana, Chirag Bangdel, Deepa Rai, Gopilal Acharya, Greta Rana, Mohammad Nurul Huda, Naseer Ahmad Nasir, Prakash Subedi, Sachendra Manandhar, Siddhartha Rai, Snehlata Rai, Shrawan Mukarung, Ujjawala Maharjan, Usha Sherchan, Yan Thulung, Yukta Bajracharya

Poet-diplomat Abhay K. pens first ever South Asian Anthem

After the success of the Earth Anthem, which has been translated into major world languages, Indian poet-diplomat Abhay K. is ready with the first ever South Asian Anthem.

In the history of South Asia, after the establishment of the South Asian University, a South Asian Anthem, a song that all South Asians could sing together, if adopted by SAARC, it would be a major catalyst in fostering deeper South Asian consciousness.  Read more at

Indian poet-diplomat pens S.Asian anthem after Earth anthem success - Business Standard