Tejdeep Kaur Menon is a police officer by profession and a poet by passion. She has published four anthologies – Caught in A Stampede (1995), Five Feet Seven And A Half Inches (1997), Minnaminni (2002) and Oysters In Pain (2003). These have been appreciated and acclaimed by literary critics and journals.
In recognition of her creative skills, the British Council awarded Tejdeep the Charles Wallace Fellowship to participate in the Cambridge Literature Seminar and Poetry Festival at the University of Cambridge, UK, in 2003. The Sahitya Akademi, in 2011, invited her to present her work at a two day conference on Writing and Gender at Ahmedabad.
Her work has been assessed in at least three books by academics on critical perspectives, trends and techniques in contemporary Indian English Poetry. These include:
- The Making of the Self: A study of Tejdeep’s Poetry - P. Hannah Padma- in Indian English Poetry- Critical Perspectives
- Conflicts in Consciousness: A Reading of Tejdeep’s Poetry – Sumita Roy in Trends and Techniques in Contemporary Indian English Poetry.
Select poems have been published in international collections of poetry including the Dance of the Peacock (Hidden Brooks, 2014) and Suvarnarekha : An anthology of Indian Women Poets Writing in English (Poetry Society of India, 2014).
Three of her poems have inspired and been transformed into theatrical dance productions – What About Me? (1999), An Easel Called Life (2002) and Porous Earth (2015). While the first two were put on boards by Bharatanatyam danseuse Ananda Shankar the third is a curated and choreographed presentation by the veteran accomplished Bharatanatyam exponent Hemamalini Arni.
Tejdeep has presented her poems at exclusive reading sessions in India and abroad including the Poetry Society, UK, Aurobindo Ashram, Puducherry, British Council Scholars Forum, Hyderabad, and several universities. The Nizam College, Hyderabad hosted an unique festival of inter –college contests, including elocution, quiz, plays and painting, based on the poems from the first three anthologies in 2002. Her poetry of concern like pledging of corneas, donating blood, campaigning against HIV and trafficking in human beings, and caring for children with cleft lip and other disorders are the subject of colourful posters by various Indian and international agencies to create awareness and make appeals.
She has been invited to speak about her creative work and read her poems by many institutions including Tata Consultancy Services, Microsoft, GE and Infosys and academic entities like the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, SVP National Police Academy, the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, and Administrative Staff College of India. Hyderabad.
The International Cleft, Lip and Palate Foundation made posters of her poem Make Me Smile to bring a popular focus on the deformity and how it can be corrected by surgical intervention. UNAIDS has used Fairy’s Child to heighten awareness about AIDS. The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad has included a poem of hers on Work – Life Balance, I’am the Best as part of the book - New Paradigms for Gender Inclusivity: Theory and Best Practices, Prentice Hall of India( 2012).
Charcoal on domestic violence and female infanticide has been used by the NGO Breakthrough for the Bell Bajao campaign. Her poems commemorating the sacrifice of Policemen, Be a Policemen, I’am a Bandsman have been translated into various languages and used extensively by the Police in different states in India. The poem When It Is My Turn has been used by the Indian Red Cross to create awareness on the value of blood and for appeals to donate it. This and another poem, Jasmine have been used by the Andhra Pradesh State AIDS Control Society as a part of its campaign to increase awareness about HIV / AIDS.
Renowned poet Shiv K. Kumar points out, “Although Tejdeep is in her real elements when she exposes her gender bias, the traditional social discrimination against women, she is also capable of transcending her feminine sensibilities to encompass a wide spectrum of human concerns and particularly injustice in every form – social, religious and political. Her verse is truly multi – faceted as it exudes authentic emotion in all its multiple forms.”
In other creative work, she produced and presented Suswagatham 2011 – an eclectic fusion of music of the brass band of the Andhra Pradesh Police, scintillating laser beams and specially tuned water fountains and a water screen – on the eve of New Year 2011 at the Lumbini Park Laserium in Hyderabad. She has fused the artistic skills of the brass band with video clips presented on giant LED screens and songs live on stage by Indian Idol Sreeram Chandra for an unique multimedia show at the All India Police Equestrian Meet held at the SVP National Police Academy in December 2011. In January 2013, she rallied some 3000 officer and men trainees for a scintillating torch and tattoo display to mark the 150th anniversary of the Indian Police before an exclusive audience led by the Vice President of India Shri Hamid Ansari in New Delhi.
‘The Porous Earth’, from my third anthology Minnamini, was earlier in April presented as a Bharatanatyam ballet with an English narrative and the melodious strains of Carnatic music. Choreographed by Smt. Hemamalini Arni renowned Bharathanatyam dancer on. It received rave reviews.
Tejdeep is currently Additional Director General of Police, Telangana and lives in Hyderabad with her husband Amarnath K. Menon, Senior Editor, India Today.
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Views and Comments on her work :
……..amazing and devastating and, at the same time, witty, angry and passionate.
The poignant sensibility that comes through her poems is impressive, almost unbelievable of an IPS Officer. Her transparency of expression is indeed disarming.
- The Journal of the Poetry Society of India
Tejdeep’s evident strength lies in combining the immensely fertile imagery with an intimate candor, challenging especially sexually-repressive convention, while avoiding crassly confessional exhibitionism.
- World Literature Today, A quarterly of the University of Oklahoma. USA
A profound concern for suffering humanity, a righteous indignation against injustice and exploitation of every sort, a keenly observant eye, a sincere commitment to the woman’s cause, an uninhibited foray into the realities of the body and the mind, a strong will ready to battle middleclass hypocrisy: these are some of the essential features of Tejdeep Kaur Menon’s Poetry.
Tejdeep Kaur Menon has reached a significant landmark with her new book Oysters In Pain. It compels recognition for its striking imagery, while thematic range and innovative use of word and phrase.
In the glimpses of conflict which abound in the poetry of Tejdeep, one may read recognition as a crucial stage because in it lies the germ of resolution which, in other words, is altering or widening the existent level of consciousness.
- Trends and Techniques in Contemporary Indian English Poetry, Rama Nair, Prestige Books, New Delhi
Deflating deeply, agonisingly felt emotion with deliberately puerile image and dictum, is a sophisticated game that is as startling as rare in a first attempt.
- Indian English Poetry: Critical Perspectives, Jaydipsinh K. Dadiya. Sarup and Sons, New Delhi
A fine example of the liberated woman.
- The Hindu
Policing provokes the poet in this woman cop.
- The Times of India
The ability to structure experience in an evocative and appealing manner is a talent Tejdeep has to a remarkable degree.
- The Indian Express
The most moving poems are those about the predicament of being a woman and wife in a gender-based society.
- The Telegraph
Browing on the beat - The Statesman
Standing tall.
- Indian Review of Books
Poetry and policing go hand in hand for this lady.
- The Statesman
Creativity of an unusual kind.
- The Deccan Chronicle
Write move.
- The Week
Laced with the sensitivity of a woman and sharpened by the observant eye of the poet
‘Porus Earth’ is a meaningful Bharatanatyam interpretation of Tejdeep Kaur Menon’s poetic work.
- The Hindu
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