Shashi Tharoor launches IIM-K director Debashis Chatterjee’s first poetry collection

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Saturday released Seven Shades of Love, the first book of poetry by Debashis Chatterjee, director of the Indian Institute of Management-Kozhikode. The launch took place in Kozhikode on September 26, according to a release. Published by Penguin Random House India, the collection brings together 57 poems.

The release said the book presents love as a theme with several dimensions rather than limiting it to romantic relationships. After the launch, Tharoor and Chatterjee interacted with students and aspiring writers. Their discussion covered reading, curiosity, writing and the importance of developing an individual voice, the release said.

Tharoor said the seven shades in the collection reflected the many-sided nature of love and culminated in freedom. He described love as the capacity to care without controlling and to remain close without claiming ownership. He also said the poems extended the idea of love to friendship, family, humanity, nature and existence.

Tharoor said the most mature form of love was not possession, but allowing another person to remain themselves. Chatterjee spoke about the beginning of his own writing journey. He said an interaction with author Khushwant Singh had influenced him.

When Chatterjee asked how one should write, Singh advised him that the way to begin was simply to start writing. Chatterjee encouraged aspiring writers to read widely, saying that reading exposed people to different ways of expressing thoughts and experiences. He also said that inspiration often emerged through the process of writing.