Alumni remember Keki Daruwalla as elegant literary person, IPS officer

The Alumni Association of SCD Government College here has mourned the death of Padma Shri Keki N Daruwalla, a poet, writer and former IPS officer, who had died at a Delhi hospital on Friday. He was 87.

In a meeting held here, former students and colleagues of Daruwalla remembered him as one of brilliant and illustrious alumni of the college.

“Keki spent six years in the college as a student to obtain his master’s degree in English literature in the 1950s, taught English literature for a while and then selected as an IPS officer,” they recalled.

The association also recollected that since his college days, Daruwalla had love for literature and a niche for writing poetry and had published many articles in the college magazine, ‘The Sutlej’. He had written 12 books and his poetry had become part of the curriculum in schools too. He was awarded by the Sahitya Akademi in 2014.

“An IPS officer of repute and integrity, he often contributed to several newspapers on current issues facing our nation,” they said.

Those present included English poet Prof Ashok Kapoor, Surinder Singh Bhogal, Shiv Dular Singh Dhillon IAS (retd), Prof PK Sharma, Col Pardeep Jawanda (redt), Principal Manjit Singh Sandhu and KB Singh.

A former principal Dr Dharam Singh Sandhu and the current officiating principal Prof Satya Rani have also sent their deep condolences at the demise of the finest and brilliant alumni of the college, who made the alma mater proud.

Brij Bhushan Goyal, organising secretary of the college alumni association, said: “Keki Daruwalla last visited the Ludhiana college in 2019. He had then recalled his times of 1950s’ era when teachers used to come to the college in black gowns.”

He further recalled that in his interaction then, Keki had asked students to memorise the poetry they loved.

Daruwalla, in May this year, had sent 12 books authored by him for the college alumni-authored book shelves through his daughter Rookvain Sorabji.

“A void created by Keki’s demise is difficult to fill as he was a down to earth man, besides keeping elegance as a literary person and a police officer,” the association added.