Born: Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India, 23 October 1963

Lives: Pune, Maharashtra, India

First book published: Sinar, Collection of poetry, 1982

I started my literary career at the age of 14 years. Since then, for the last 25 years I have been regularly engaged in writing.  I grew up in a multilingual milieu with a creative co-existence of Marathi, Urdu and Hindi at Aurangabad in Maharashtra.

 I was fortunate enough to get introduced to different aspects of oral and folk literary tradition- ranging from the Marathi ovees to keertan performance to Urdu mushairas. This experience enriched my sensitivities and widened my understanding of folk and elite culture as well as oral, Bhakti and written literary traditions in Maharashtra. Though I have used various forms of writing like personal essays, short stories, literary and art criticism; my principle form of expression has been poetry.

Albeit an engineer by profession, I have spent some years in journalism contributing regular columns on contemporary art, films, literary works and events, socio-cultural issues in weekly editions of Marathi newspapers.

Being an artist and designer, I have designed and illustrated the books of some reputed publishing houses. My writings in literary criticism and poetry have been published in the leading Marathi literary periodicals. I enjoyed bringing various Hindi and Urdu writers in Marathi by translating their short stories and poems. Many of these translations have appeared in weekly editions of Marathi newspapers and literary journals and periodicals. Translations of my poems in English have been published in some journals.

I am intrigued by colours and forms around me. That is how I got involved in illustrations, designing and painting for more than last two decades. My paintings were exhibited at different times. Two major solo painting shows were organized - one at Pune in 2000 and the other at Kolkata in 2001.