Moosa Raza

Moosa Raza was born and brought up in a village in Tamil Nadu that had no electricity, no running water, no flush system and no doors to any house. During the first nine years of his life, he did not know the English alphabet and only learnt rudimentary Urdu. Today he writes poetry in English, Hindi, Urdu, Persian and Arabic. He has already published five books, including two collections of Urdu poems.An IAS officer of the 1960 cadre, he rose to become a chief secretary of the state of Jammu and Kashmir and secretary to the Government of India. After retirement, he heads a large educational trust with 10,000 students, 600 academic and managerial staff and is the chairman of several private-sector enterprises in Mumbai. He continues to work and write even in his 80s and is deeply committed to the affairs of the nation.