Shashi Tharoor releases IIM-K Director’s first book of poetry

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Congress MP Shashi Tharoor in a conversation with IIM-K Director Debashis Chatterjee after releasing his book of poems in Kozhikode on September 26, 2026. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement 

Shashi Tharoor, Thiruvananthapuram MP, on Saturday (September 26, 2026) released Seven Shades of Love, the first book of poetry by Debashis Chatterjee, Director, Indian Institute of Management-Kozhikode (IIM-K).

Published by Penguin Random House India, it brings together 57 poems. A release said that after the book launch, Mr. Tharoor and Mr. Chatterjee also engaged with students and aspiring writers on reading, curiosity, writing and the courage to find one's own voice. Mr. Tharoor observed that the seven shades arise from the many-sided nature of love, culminating in freedom. He reflected on love as the ability to care without controlling and to remain close without claiming ownership. “The most mature form of love is not possession. It is allowing another person to remain themselves,” he said. Mr. Tharoor noted that the poems extend the idea of love beyond romantic relationships to friendship, family, humanity, nature, and existence itself.

Mr. Chatterjee traced the beginning of his own journey into writing to an interaction with celebrated author Khushwant Singh, who, when asked how one should write, advised him that the only way to start writing was to simply start writing. He encouraged aspiring writers to read widely, observing that reading exposes one to the many ways in which thoughts and experiences can be expressed. “Inspiration often comes through the process of writing,” he said.

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