Noted author and former Kerala Chief Secretary K Jayakumar brought laurels for entire bureaucracy in the state by bagging the Kendra Sahitya Akademi award for his poem collection ‘Pingalakeshini’. The prestigious award includes a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh, a citation, and a memento. The poet said that the collection urges people to reflect on the erosion of values in society. Jayakumar’s ‘Pingalakeshini’ was selected from a shortlist of nine Malayalam works.
Apart from having an impressive bureaucratic career, Jayakumar’s contributions to literature and the arts have been immense. Not only this, he has written lyrics for nearly 100 Malayalam films and albums and authored approximately 25 Malayalam and four English books.
It was his overall contributions to literature that earned him the Kerala Sahitya Akademi award in 2021. A 1978 batch IAS officer Jayakumar served as Kerala’s Chief Secretary from April 2012 to October 2012.
