IRS officer and writer Tushar Dhawal Singh shares how poetry, painting, spirituality, and profound emotional awareness continued to influence his life silently behind the intense world of administration and investigation.
There are officers remembered by their titles. And then there are uncommon individuals whose inner landscapes are far greater than the offices they occupy.
In one dimension of his life, Tushar Dhawal Singh manages investigations, administration, paperwork, financial structures, and the heavy responsibilities of the Indian Revenue Service. As Principal Commissioner & Principal Director (Investigation) of Income Tax, Bihar, he holds one of the most delicate positions within the bureaucracy.
But somewhere beyond the official desk exists another man altogether.
A man who listens to the cadence of rain striking rooftops. Who stops to watch birds gliding across the sky. Who writes poetry suddenly, almost involuntarily. Who sketches, paints, meditates, and reflects deeply on life, existence, and human feeling.
Speaking to Indian Masterminds, Tushar Dhawal Singh opened the doors to this quieter universe — a world shaped by literature, art, remembrance, and contemplation.
He is also the writer of three books, including Ye Aawazen Kuchh Kahati Hain and Magic Muhalla. Yet even today, he speaks about writing not as accomplishment, but as something deeply instinctive.
THE CHILD WHO TRANSFORMED WALLS INTO CANVAS
Long before he became an IRS officer, he was a young child carrying paintbrushes through the house.
At the age of three or four, he had already begun drawing endlessly across walls. Family members often considered it harmless childhood behaviour. But in his imagination, every sketch carried emotion.
“Every drawing had a story,” he remembered.
Writing entered his life soon afterward. By Class 2, he had started scribbling short thoughts and lines. By Class 5, writing had turned into a habit. And after that, it never truly disappeared.
“There were pauses occasionally,” he told Indian Masterminds. “But the stream always returned.”
By middle school, classmates had stopped using his real name. They had given him another identity — “Kaviraj.”
Even then, nobody realised that creativity would remain with him throughout life, quietly surviving beside bureaucracy and official responsibilities.
ROOTS IN BIHAR, CHILDHOOD IN BOKARO
Though his family originally belonged to Bihar’s Banka district and his maternal side came from Munger, Bokaro became the emotional centre of his life.
His father worked at the Bokaro Steel Plant, and the family eventually settled there permanently.
But literature already existed in the atmosphere around him.
His maternal great-grandfather, known as “Bhramar Ji,” was both a freedom fighter and a poet. Some of his poems still remain preserved in old family collections.
His father, despite being a science student, carried an extraordinary love for Hindi language and literature. That influence deeply shaped the young Tushar Dhawal Singh.
One memory remains especially vivid.
When he was in Class 4, his father brought home the famous novel Anandamath. Because of his shift duties at the steel plant, there were afternoons and late evenings when father and son sat together reading passages aloud.
But these were not ordinary reading sessions.
His father would pause between lines and explain how words transformed emotional meaning depending on context.
“He taught me sensitivity toward language,” Singh said.
Gradually, the child began experimenting with unfamiliar words in school essays and assignments. Even his father was surprised by how quickly he absorbed language.
THE ESSAY THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
Sometimes, life changes direction through very small moments.
For Tushar Dhawal Singh, one such moment arrived during a school summer vacation.
Students had been asked to write an essay titled How I Spent My Holidays. He completely forgot about it until the very morning school reopened.
In panic, he hurriedly wrote something moments before the school bus arrived.
He believed it was terrible.
But the next day, his teacher read the essay aloud before the entire class as an example of exceptional writing.
He was astonished.
Later, when he showed the piece to his father, family friends interested in literature praised it repeatedly.
For the first time, he felt something shift within himself.
“Maybe I can actually write,” he remembered thinking.
That small incident quietly changed the direction of his life.
WHY POETRY ALWAYS RETURNS TO HINDI
Interestingly, Singh writes both in English and Hindi. His analytical and formal writing is often in English.
But poetry, he says, arrives only in Hindi.
Not because he consciously selected it. It simply happens naturally.
“I tried writing poetry in English,” he told Indian Masterminds. “But it never truly happened.”
For him, poetry is deeply connected to emotional memory. The language one grows up hearing carries hidden rhythms, cultural echoes, and emotional textures that cannot easily be recreated elsewhere.
And for him, that emotional language remains Hindi.
This emotional relationship with language can also be seen in his books. His writings often combine simplicity with reflection, focusing not on complexity, but on feeling.
“POETRY CANNOT BE MANUFACTURED”
Singh speaks about poetry almost like a living force.
He strongly dislikes over-intellectualising art. In his view, poetry should communicate directly with human emotion.
“If a poem touches you, that is enough,” he said.
He questions why art must always be “explained” before people are allowed to feel it.
For him, rhythm exists everywhere — in rain, breathing, birds, silence, even in everyday conversations.
And poetry emerges from that rhythm.
Perhaps his most striking observation comes when he describes his creative process itself.
“I cannot sit down and decide to write poetry,” he explained. “It comes suddenly. Like vomiting. If you do not release it at that moment, the train leaves.”
Unlike prose, which can be revised repeatedly, he believes poetry loses life when over-edited. Most of his first drafts remain close to the final version.
For him, poetry is not constructed carefully. It erupts naturally.
ART, SPIRITUALITY, AND INNER RHYTHM
Over the years, his writing has evolved.
Earlier poems were more emotional and instinctive. Today, they increasingly move toward philosophy, contemplation, and spirituality.
He believes meditation and life experiences gradually transformed his inner world.
One idea appears repeatedly in his thinking — “laya,” or rhythm.
According to him, existence itself survives through rhythm. When rhythm collapses, destruction begins.
This applies not just to music or poetry, but also to relationships, societies, emotions, and even human behaviour.
That is why he feels much of modern creative expression often becomes emotionally hollow.
“People imitate forms,” he observed, “but inner sensitivity is missing.”
LIVING TWO PARALLEL LIVES
The contrast between his profession and personality surprises many people.
Even Singh admits that bureaucracy does not naturally align with his sensitive temperament.
But over time, he learned to balance both worlds.
“One side of my brain handles administration,” he said with a smile. “The other keeps observing life.”
He writes poems inside offices. Sketches during meetings. Observes people silently while travelling through towns and villages.
For him, creativity is not separate from life.
It is simply another way of experiencing reality.
THE QUESTION THAT STAYS
Toward the end of the conversation, Singh reflected on life itself.
He does not believe life is meaningless. But he also avoids rigid philosophical answers.
Instead, he returns to one quiet but powerful question:
“What did you do with the time given to you between birth and death?”
He often asks younger officers to think about what they would want written on their tombstone someday.
Not generic praise.
Something meaningful.
Something personal.
“What did you create?”
“How did you change lives?”
“Why should the world remember you?”
Perhaps that search itself continues to guide him.
Not merely as an officer.
But as a poet quietly breathing beneath the uniform.