Pavan K. Varma

Pavan K Verma is a novelist, translator, non fiction writer and a bureaucrat. A senior member of the Indian Foreign Service, Pavan K Varma has held several crucial posts in the Government of India and is the Ambassador of India to Bhutan. Pavan K Varma stu...

Pavan K Verma is a novelist, translator, non fiction writer and a bureaucrat. A senior member of the Indian Foreign Service, Pavan K Varma has held several crucial posts in the Government of India and is the Ambassador of India to Bhutan.


Pavan K Varma studied History at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi and took a degree in Law from Delhi University. Before being the Ambassador of India to Bhutan, he has served in Moscow, New York, London and Cyprus.


His popular books include biography of noted Persian poet Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib titled Ghalib: The Man, The Times; Krishna: The Playful Divine and The Great Indian Middle Class. In this he analysed the vast and increasing disparities between the haves and the have-nots.


Many of his books including Being Indian: The Truth About Why the 21st Century Will Be India’s and Becoming Indian: The Unfinished Revolution of Culture and Identity have been widely translated in European and other Indian languages and continue to remain on best seller lists. He has also come out with a work of fiction, When Loss is Gain. He has also translated Gulzar (Neglected Poems), Kaifi Azmi (Selected Poems), and Atal Bihari Vajpayee (21 Poems) into English. Being Indian: The Truth About Why the 21st Century Will Be India’s 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.”


Varma’s first work of fiction When Loss is Gain is a powerful story dealing with life and death, loss and gain, happiness and fulfillment, which animates most of Hindu philosophy.