User:Varakur Gopalakrishnan

Mr.V.S.Gopalakrishnan (Varakur Srinivasan Gopalakrishnan – Varakur being a village in the North Arcot District) was born on 17 October 1939 in Chennai (earlier known as Madras) in the Tamil Nadu State of India. Besides being known as a top civil servant, he uniquely combines in his personality several other facets. A man of many parts and multi-faceted, he is known as a cartoonist, writer, singer, painter and a poet. He was educated at Madras Christian College (1955-60) where he passed Intermediate Class (1955-57) and later obtained a B.Sc.Honours (1957-60) cum M.A. degree in Physics as the main subject.

He appeared for the U.P.S.C. national level competitive examinations in 1961 and was selected to the Indian Administrative Service in 1962. After his initial training from the National Academy of Administration at Mussoorie, he was posted to serve in the Maharashtra cadre. He worked in various capacities such as District Collector, Dhulia; District Collector, Ahmednagar; Chief Executive Officer, Akola ; Divisional Commissioner, Nagpur; Cooperation Commissioner and Registrar of Cooperative Societies, Maharashtra State, Pune and in various other important posts. He also served in the Government of India as Deputy Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Director in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and Development Commissioner, SEEPZ, Mumbai. He took voluntary retirement from the I.A.S. in 1995 and served as the Director General of the World Trade Centre, Mumbai from 1995 to 2005. During his service period, he obtained a Ph.D. from the Bombay University on the subject of Free Trade Zones.

Gopalakrishnan whose mother tongue is Tamil, had to pass departmental examinations in Marathi in the beginning of his service. His optional language choice in the Intermediate course was Hindi. He developed an interest in languages and obtained a Diploma in French from the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, New Delhi. Thereafter he obtained a Certificate in German form the Max Muller Bhavan, New Delhi and a Certificate in Italian from the Italian Embassy Cultural Centre, New Delhi. He also obtained a Certificate in Spanish from the RBCS, Mumbai. He also underwent a Post Graduate Diploma Course in Economics and Finance at the Institut International d’Administration Publique, Paris (1974-76) under a French Government scholarship.

As a young boy living in Madras, he was inspired by cartoonists like Gopulu and Thanu as he was greatly fond of sketching and drawing. He underwent a cartooning course by correspondence and obtained a Diploma in Cartooning from Raye Burns School of Cartooning, USA, while executing his college studies. He published his first cartoons in his College magazine. Subsequently, his cartoons have appeared over the decades in publications such as Shankar’s Weekly, Times Weekly, Caravan, Indian Express, The Asian Age etc. He has five books of cartoons to his credit which are titled thus: (1) Bureaucrat Goes Berserk (2) Bureaucrat Goes Bananas (3) Bureaucrat Goes Bonkers (4) Going Haywire and (5) Fangs and Feathers.

Gopalakrishnan’s talent as a painter began to find expression after his retirement from the busy years of his service. After getting some training from Ms.Uma Malik, a product of the J.J.School of Arts, Mumbai, he began painting as a serious hobby and in all held seven one man shows in Mumbai starting from 1999. That included shows at the Jehangir Art Gallery and The Artists’ Centre, Kala Ghoda. Gopalakrishnan was also the Chairman of the Artists’ Centre from 2003 to 2006.

Ever fond of writing, his first attempts were letters to the Editor, The Hindu. He contributed articles to his college magazine. Subsequently, he published a number of “middles” in The Times of India, The Indian Express, Hindustan Times etc on matters of general interest. He has been a voluminous contributor to the internet writers’ sites at Chowk.com and Sulekha.com. His writings cover a wide variety of subjects such as Music, Arts, History, Current Affairs, Religion, Philosophy etc. He has also written a good number of short stories which are available at his blog sites.

Particularly during his tenure at the World Trade Centre, Mumbai, he published a number of articles on economics and trade in the Economic Times and the Industrial Economist. He has written a book called “World Trade Organisation and India: My Insights” which was published by the WTC, Mumbai in 2005.

Gopalakrishnan showed interest in singing particularly Hindi film songs from his young days when he did not have any taste for classical music. Much later in life, he developed an interest particularly in Hindustani music. He trained seriously in Hindustani vocal from 1999 and passed Madhyama examination in 2006. He has also sung more than 400 Hindi film songs originally rendered by Mohammad Rafi, Mukesh, Talat Mehmood, Kishore Kumar and others, and has uploaded them on to YouTube. He sings for his own satisfaction, not for others’ satisfaction, he says.

Gopalakrishnan has also been tempted by the poetic Muse. He published many English poems in journals/dailies. He put them into two books published by him. His wife late Revathy Gopal was a well known English poet from Bombay and she figures in several anthologies.