Colonel [Dr.] Ramanan Duraiswami is a graduate of the prestigious Armed Forces Medical College, Pune. Commissioned into the Army Medical Corps, he served in the Indian Army for 36 glorious years. After retirement, he settled down in Secunderabad, Telangana, and is a professor of Pathology in a private medical college in Hyderabad. He published his first book of poetry, Pensive Ponderings, in 2019. He has recently come out with his second poetry book, The Covid Chronicles: Lyrics of Lockdown Life and More. His other interests include dramatics, singing Western Country and soft rock songs, and learning Spanish and French.

I chat with him about his book The Covid Chronicles, the themes that he has discussed in the poems in this book, book recommendations, and much more.

Hello, Dr. Ramanan! Tell us a bit about yourself!

Hello! I am Colonel [Dr.] Ramanan Duraiswami. I did my schooling in the USA till 3^rd Grade and then joined Springdales School, New Delhi from where I did my CBSE 12^th standard Boards. I joined the famous Armed Forces Medical College, Pune in 1973 and graduated in 1977. I was commissioned into the Army Medical Corps on 18^th March 1978. I retired from the Army on 30^th September 2013 as a Pathologist and Hospital Administrator. After retirement I joined a private hospital in Hyderabad as HOD Laboratory Services, and then, after two years, took up a teaching job as Professor of Pathology at Mallareddy Institute of Medical Sciences in Hyderabad.

I am a paratrooper, sing country music [John Denver, Jim Reeves] and soft rock [Beatles, Deep Purple, Eagles, Cliff Richard], and have been a debater in school and college. I have been on the football and basketball teams of my school and college, and have acted in and directed plays.

I wrote a few poems in school, but none thereafter, because of my studies and professional commitments. I started writing poetry again only in 2018 or thereabouts, usually casual stuff on the WhatsApp group of my AFMC batch. I realized that I could actually write stuff, good enough for a book, when my wife and my batch mates told me so!

If you could only describe your poetry book The Covid Chronicles: Lyrics of Lockdown Life and More in five words, what would they be?

The coronavirus catastrophe lyrically chronicled.

Now tell us a little more about the book! What can readers expect?

The readers can expect a series of poems depicting various aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic and how it has affected our lives, especially of the underprivileged, and how we should combat it. I have kept the mood deliberately sombre although some poems do offer a glimmer of hope and optimism. A couple of poems are again deliberately light-hearted. The book also contains the song lyrics for two songs about Covid-19 that I have sung and recorded for YouTube.

What was the moment when the idea of this book first came to be? What made you pursue it?

I have published a book of poetry, Pensive Ponderings, in 2019. When the pandemic broke out in 2020 and the lockdown was enforced, I felt that it would be appropriate to chronicle different aspects of this unprecedented human tragedy for posterity. I am a spontaneous writer; I would observe something or listen to a news item, which would trigger off the overwhelming urge to write a poem about that particular event or observation. For instance, late one evening, I saw a stray dog lying peacefully in the middle of the road opposite our apartment complex, unperturbed by any traffic because of the lockdown. This was the genesis of the poem ‘The Princely Dog of Lockdown’. It took me a year to get enough material to publish the book, but I felt that the wait was worth it.

What different themes and topics have you discussed in the poems in this book?

The majority of my poems are about the Covid-19 pandemic – its origin, how it has affected the entire human race, how the lockdowns have affected everyone, especially the migrant labourers, and how we as individuals have been affected by the pandemic and the lockdowns. I have also highlighted our collective failure as individuals and at the government level to act responsibly and prevent the second wave of the pandemic. I have written about how the lockdown affected Mother Nature’s other creations. I have highlighted the role of medical professionals in handling this unprecedented crisis of enormous proportions.

What is the message that you want readers to take away from this book?

I wanted to record for posterity how our greed and callousness as citizens of this planet led to this catastrophe, and how we have failed to act responsibly as citizens to control the spread of the virus in our country. I hope that my readers will learn how a tiny, sub-microscopic virus was sufficient to play havoc with our well-ordered lives, to change our very perception of how to live our lives. I hope that my readers will do their bit to be environment friendly, socially conscious, responsible citizens of India.

Which poets and poems have been your inspirations?

I have read the poems of William Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats and Lord Tennyson in school, and have been inspired by their style of writing.

How have you been coping with the current pandemic and what will be the new normal for you post it?

My wife and I have learnt to be more self sufficient at home, and to use our creativity in the performing arts (and particularly for me, in my writing) to reduce stress. We are regular with our exercises and walks, and have learnt to deal with the need to move out of our house minimally. After the pandemic settles down, we hope to resume our travels to foreign climes again, suitably observing Covid appropriate behaviour.

What are you reading currently?

I am currently learning French and Spanish languages using Collins’ books.

The book ‘The Covid Chronicles’ is available online and at your nearest bookstore.