A World Lost — A civil servant doing the ‘write’ thing
The Hindu
Through his stories, he takes his readers through the common man’s struggle with the vicissitudes of life
Ram Prasad Sisodia’s keen sense of observation reflects in the realistic portrayal of the powerful characters from the vignettes of life that he had put together in his book of short stories — A world lost.
“My stories are part autobiographical and part fictional. I picked up strands from my personal experiences and weaved them into fictional tales,” says Mr. Sisodia, 1991 batch IAS officer and the Special Chief Secretary to Andhra Pradesh Governor.
Through his stories, he takes his readers through the common man’s struggle with the vicissitudes of life.
Taking the less trodden path, he deliberately leaves the endings of his stories neutral “because I don’t want to make any judgement. I leave it to the reader to decide,” he says admitting that he often gets asked why his stories do not have proper endings.
An introvert by his own admission, Mr. Sisodia speaks about a ‘difficult childhood’ wherein after the initial few years of home-schooling, he went to a formal school after his parents shifted to Mathura.
But as the adage goes ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’, he turned out to be a quick learner and grew up to be an avid reader, poet and writer. Besides, he developed a keen interest in painting, yoga and swimming.
He completed his first piece of work Khwabon ki parchayian, a collection of poems in Hindi and Urdu when he was 18 years old.
In 2021, five women from Mayithara, four of them MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) workers, found a common ground in their desire to create a sustainable livelihood by growing vegetables. Rajamma M., Mary Varkey, Valsala L., Elisho S., and Praseeda Sumesh, aged between 70 and 39, pooled their savings, rented a piece of land and began their collective vegetable farming journey under the Deepam Krishi group.