Amol Titus was born in Jaipur, India, in 1967. The son of a Columbia University educated journalist father and an educationist mother, he started writing from an early age and recalls having produced his first creative piece at the age of five. What began as a hobby soon blossomed into a passion which he sustained throughout his education at St Columba’s School, St Stephen’s College (both in Delhi) and XLRI Jamshedpur where he earned a management degree.
It was at St Stephen’s College where he completed a BA (Honours) Degree in English that he got an excellent exposure to the literary greats and the writing styles and movements they pioneered. The well respected faculty at the College also exposed him to the discipline of literary criticism. He was a University gold medalist and was ranked first in both St Stephen’s College and Delhi University upon completion of the program. In recognition of this achievement he was also awarded the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru scholarship for post graduate studies.
During the three year program he developed a particular liking for William Shakespeare and Samuel Beckett amongst playwrights, William Blake, TS Elliot and WH Auden amongst poets and Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad and John Steinbeck as novelists and Franz Kafka as a short story/novella specialist. The great Kafka, who was an insurance salesman by day, also holds a special inspiration for Amol as he seeks to balance his “creative vigor with corporate rigors”.
Amongst more recent writers he admires the works of William Golding, VS Naipaul and JM Coetzee. He finds the contemporary writing movements in China, India, Australia, Africa and Indonesia fascinating and enjoys reading authors whose works are pushing the boundaries and stereotypes that have hitherto characterized or limited these movements. He hopes his own works can in some meaningful way also contribute towards the creative churnings emanating from contemporary India and Indonesia.
During his school and college days he recalls that his “journalistic genes” were nurtured by a conducive environment that included encouraging parents and teachers, access to a variety of books and his association with the editorial boards of the in-house publications The Columban (St Columba’s School), The Conch (St Stephen’s College) and The Excelsior (at the Xaviers Management Institute). He started contributing articles on a freelance basis to local dailies and has continued this interest with his monthly column for The Jakarta Post and Tempo which are preeminent journalistic institutions in ASEAN/Indonesia.
After earning a management degree from XLRI in 1990, where he did a dissertation in Services Management, Amol embarked on a career in management. His working career took him to Indonesia in the aftermath of the Asian Financial crisis in 1997/98 and has been living in Jakarta since 1998 currently heading IndonesiaWISE, an international management consulting company. He regards his experience in the country during “its second birth” fascinating and his extensive travels within the country and exposure to developmental and environmental issues first hand continue to further shape his creative sensibilities. As during his school and college days he has maintained his passion for writing which he considers intrinsic to his work-life balance. His writing talents have also introduced him to an array of Indonesian writers, artists and journalists who have offered him perspectives and insights that he would not have otherwise experienced or been exposed to and he regards these as a special blessing.
In 2003 he published Darkness at Bamiyan which was inspired by the tragic destruction of the great Buddhist statues at Bamiyan in Afghanistan. The book is an imaginative dialogue between the two statues, Sol Sol and Shahmama, who poignantly reflect on various aspects of the human condition such as uncertainty, materialism, ritualism, dogma, guilt, anger and separation. The poetry in the book has an epic sweep spanning 160 stanzas and 640 lines and interwoven into the dialogue between the protagonists are certain illustrative tenets of Buddhist philosophy. By succeeding in giving a unique resonance to the tragic statues, Darkness at Bamiyan, has been compared by some readers to Percy Bysshe Shelley’s famous work Ozymandias.
A Summit at Jungfraujoch was published in 2004 and the inspiration for the subject matter, a dialogue between the great mountain ranges of the world, was crystallized during his visit to Jungfraujoch in the Bernese Oberland region of the Swiss Alps in the summer of 2003. The dialogue spanning 60 stanzas and 480 lines explores our collective past, present and future and in doing so also evokes imagery from the fields of geography, geology and astronomy. A series of searching questions are also raised befitting the open ended nature of the communion amongst the ancients.
During the creative fervor of Darkness at Bamiyan and A Summit at Jungfraujoch, Amol also produced a series of black and white ink sketches. This interest, which he also developed in his childhood, provides him a complementary dimension through which to explore his themes. Several of the sketches have verses inscribed on them and he regards these as an evocative backdrop to his reading sessions/participations in events or festivals. These sketches are not for sale and principally adorn the walls of his creative den in South Jakarta. The growth of the internet of course has magnified the power of the visual and an unintended beneficiary of these sketches has been this website and its designer who has found in the sketches a useful creative context. Amol is very interested in art and enjoys reading about the great artists, their lives and inspirations. He regards as his favorites Titian, Rembrandt, Renoir and Salvador Dali. The works of WG Hofker, Affandi and Dullah on Indonesian subjects and MF Hussain, Amrita Shergill and Suhas Roy on Indian subjects also fascinates him.
Modern Traumas is a recent collection of poetry through which he has examined some of the issues of modern existence that challenge and engage the like minded amongst us. These include terrorism, racism, consumerism, the stereotyping of the feminine, choke of bureaucracies, environmental degradation, lack of statesmanship, threats faced by ancient tribes, pandemics and nuclear descents amongst others. In the book he has paid a special tribute to Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi, two contemporary leaders whose lives and actions have moved him and whom he regards as “flickering glows in an otherwise rapidly darkening global stage”.
During the production of Modern Traumas Amol has also produced a series of collages in which he has used newspaper headings to reflect some of the contemporary issues he is exploring. The result is an interesting interplay between his creativity and the perceptiveness of headline writers experienced through a variety of publications that he normally is exposed to.
He resides in Jakarta with his wife, Jayshri, who is a professional school teacher and two sons, Karan and Tarun. He is currently finalizing on a collection of poetry on Indonesia and India titled Two Clipped Wings and a novel set in Sri Lanka titled The Fires at Perahera. He can be contacted via author@amoltitus.com
