About the author Arun Kumar:

Arun Kumar is a partner with KPMG LLP, based in Silicon Valley. He serves on the Board of Directors of the firm. He is a leader in providing advisory services relating to finance transformation and business intelligence to major global corporations. He also leads the US-India Practice for the firm.

Arun has spoken at numerous conferences and moderated panels at a variety of institutions including MIT, Stanford University and the Asia Society on topics relating to his work that range from finance transformation and business performance management to investing in emerging markets and India’s economic development. 

Arun is a member of a number of non-profit and advisory boards. He serves on the Board of Directors of the U.S. India Business Council, and is Chair of the TiE Silicon Valley Economic Forum. He serves on the Committee on Finance Information Technology of the Financial Executives Institute. He previously served for six years on the Humanities and Sciences Council of Stanford University. He is currently a member of the Executive Advisory Board of the University of California, Santa Cruz and a member of the Board of Governors of the Asian School of Business, Trivandrum. 

He is a co-editor of Kerala’s Economy: Crouching Tiger, Sacred Cows, published by DC Books, 2006. Arun is the author of a book of poetry, Plain Truths, published by Current Books, 2010.

Arun received his master’s in management from the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Kerala, India. He started his career in India as a member of TAS, the Tata Administrative Service.

Shashi Tharoor: "Arun Kumar's poems are wry, spare, affecting. He finds meaning in those elusive moments that pass the rest of us by, and weaves original patterns out of the fleeting thoughts and emotions that emerge from the mundanities of daily life. Arun's Plain Truths are found in social settings, the departure of a son for college, the cooking of a favourite hostess -- but also in the ideas of a scientist, the theorems of a mathematician and the life work of a poet. A rich and rewarding collection."

Geeta Doctor: "These are poems annotated by a traveller through time and space. At times they sparkle with the easy laughter amongst friends, a bright postcard of impressions written from the ends of the earth. At others, they are filled with the silence of unspoken thoughts, of words suspended in memory. There is a spare bare quality about Arun's use of language, an economy of expression that captures the intensity of truly felt observations. He wears his elegance lightly;  at home in the world, he still retains a memory of rain, the warmth and the grace of his childhood in Kerala."

Abraham Verghese: "Arun's  poetry is united thematically by his unique voice, one that is intensely personal yet playful, and moreover, a voice revealing the deep insights of one who has lived and loved and observed carefully-no moment in the poet's life has been wasted.  This is an astonishing collection and I shall eagerly look for more."

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