By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 12 Apr: Addressing a young audience at Doon University during an enlightening episode of its ‘Creative Rendezvous: Meet the Author’ series organised by ‘Elysian’, the Literary Society of the English Department, Uttarakhand DGP Ashok Kumar spoke about his book, Khakhi Me Insaan (Human in Khaki), published in 2011.
The literary gathering heard from DGP Kumar about his experiences and insights as an author and a top cop.
Vice-Chancellor of Doon University, Prof Surekha Dangwal, in her welcome note, set the tone for the literary event. The second edition of Elysian’s literary magazine, Pegasus, a special Women’s Day issue, was also released on the occasion, containing interviews with illustrious women of substance from different fields of life assuming leadership roles.
The entire event was managed by the students from the department who introduced the author, Ashok Kumar. There was also an insightful question-answer round, as Kumar talked about his book’s themes, inspirations, and the challenges he faced as an author. Through the sixteen anecdotes sensitively portrayed in Khaki Mein Insaan, he deals with a large variety of subjects like gang rape for buttressing petty political ambitions, child labour, crime against women, labour law, terrorism, the constitution, police-public interaction, IPC, other special legal acts and image of the police in cinema. Ashok Kumar inspired the audience with his insightful journey as a writer. The simplicity of the plots narrated with compassion and empathy makes the book a must read for the common citizen as well as those in uniform. The writer has enunciated soulful socio-cultural narratives on the one hand and with psychological finesse articulated the personality of the criminals, the victims, the places, and the history.
In this context, he mentioned how the people acquired a newfound respect for the police during the challenges posed by the Covid pandemic and lockdown, due to the exemplary devotion to duty displayed by the force.
The event was conducted under the guidance of Dr. Chetana Pokhriyal, Dean, School of Languages; Prof HC Purohit, Dean, Students’ Welfare; Prof Mamgai, Dean, School of Social Sciences; Dr Arun and Dr AC Joshi. The students were left with a newfound appreciation of the police administrators, the power of literature and storytelling.
