Pavan Varma
Pavan K. Varma (born 5 November 1953) is a former Indian Foreign Service officer and was an adviser to the Chief Minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, with cabinet rank.
Pavan Varma | |
|---|---|
![]() Varma speaking at a book launch in Nehru Centre, London, in 2005, when he was its director | |
| Indian High Commissioner to Cyprus | |
| In office 8 August 2001 – 23 January 2004 | |
| Preceded by | Shyamala Balasubramanian Cowsik |
| Succeeded by | Neelam D. Sabharwal |
| Indian Ambassador to Bhutan | |
| In office 2009–2013 | |
| Preceded by | Sudhir Vyas |
| Succeeded by | Virupakshan Pranatharthi Haran |
| MP of Rajya Sabha for Bihar | |
| In office 23 June 2014 – 7 July 2016 | |
| General Secretary of Janata Dal (United) | |
| In office 10 November 2016 – 29 January 2020 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 5 November 1953 Nagpur[1] |
| Political party | All India Trinamool Congress (2021-Present) Janata Dal (United) (2016-2020) |
With effect from June 2014, he was a Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) until July 2016. He was the National General Secretary and National Spokesman of the Janata Dal (United).

Bibliography
Fiction
- Pavan K. Varma (2012). When Loss is Gain. Rain Tree. ISBN 978-81-291-1941-4.
Non-fiction
- Pavan K. Varma (1989). Ghalib, the man, the times. Viking.
- Pavan K. Varma (1992). Havelis of Old Delhi. Bookwise (India).
- Pavan K. Varma (1993). Krishna, the playful divine. Viking.
- Pavan K. Varma (1996). Yudhishtar and Draupadi. Penguin Books India.
- Pavan K. Varma (1998). The great Indian middle class. Viking.
- Pavan K. Varma (1 April 2004). Being Indian: the truth about why the twenty-first century will be India's. Viking.
- Pavan K. Varma; Sandhya Mulchandani (1 June 2004). Love and lust: an anthology of erotic literature from ancient and medieval India. HarperCollins Publishers a joint venture with India Today Group.
- Pavan K. Varma (1 February 2007). Kamasutra: The Art of Making Love to a Woman. Roli Books Private, Limited. ISBN 978-81-7436-448-7.
- Pavan K. Varma (2010). Becoming Indian: The Unfinished Revolution of Culture and Identity. Penguin Books India. ISBN 978-0-670-08346-6.
- Pavan K. Varma (2018). Adi Shankaracharya: Hinduism's Greatest Thinker. Tranquebar. ISBN 978-81-9365-561-0.
As a sequel to The Great Indian Middle Class in 1998, he, in association with journalist Renuka Khandekar, published Maximize Your Life: An Action Plan for the Indian Middle Class (Viking 2000). His 2004 Being Indian was published by William Heinemann, in the United Kingdom, as Being Indian: Inside the Real India in March 2005. Adi Shankaracharya: Hinduism's Greatest Thinker has translated and published in various Indian languages.
Translations
- Selected Poems: Kaifi Azmi (Viking/Penguin 2001) is the English translation of the Urdu poems of Kaifi Azmi.
- 21 Poems (Viking/Penguin), a translation in English of the Hindi poems of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the then Prime Minister of India, was published in December 2001.
- Selected Poems: Gulzar (Penguin) a translated collection of the poems of Gulzar into English, one of India’s best-known poets, came out in April 2008.
- Neglected Poems, Pavan K. Varma’s second volume of the English translations of Gulzar’s poems was launched at the Jaipur Literary Festival in January 2012.
- Green Poems: Gulzar, (Penguin, 2014) Pavan K. Varma's third volume of the English translation of Gulzar's poems.
- Suspected Poems: Gulzar, (Penguin, 2017) Pavan K. Varma's fourth volume of the English translation of Gulzar's poems.
Awards
Kalinga International Literary Awards in 2019
