Keki was born in Lahore of undivided India, where his father was a professor of English in a government college. But the family shifted to India before the Partition. Keki studied English literature before embarking on his policing career in 1958. I think his formal English education in college was the trigger point of entering the world of English poetry. But there was more to choosing a language left behind by the colonisers. He himself admitted that when his father’s library was filled with 3,000 books in the language, he had no other choice but to latch on to English. As early as in 1964, his poems appeared in Quest and his first book, Under Orion, was published in 1970 by Dr P. Lal of Kolkata’ s Writers Workshop. His books of poetry began to appear at regular intervals thereafter, establishing him as one of the foremost English poets of India, winning the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1984 and the Commonwealth Poetry prize in 1987. A barrage of other literary honours also decorated his haloed cap. He has written 16 books of poetry and fiction, including his Collected Poems (1970-2005, Penguin India) and Landfall (2018-22, Speaking Tiger Books).