Krishna Joshi

I am a Polymer Engineer with more than three decades in the Plastics & Rubber Industry — starting on the shop floor, and going on to lead organizations & businesses, India & pan-Asia. Chemistry and Engineering have taught me to look closely at how things are made, and that habit never quite stayed only inside the workplace context.

Away from work, I run marathons barefoot, practice yoga, and play table tennis and squash. I read as much as I can — Kannada Literature above all, and Indian History and Mythology close behind. I enjoy tracing a line from the epics to the modern workplace setup, and I like to spend my time, when I can mentoring children and young professionals who are just finding their feet.

The Poetry Lab is my humble attempt where I try to bring these two halves together. Kannada poetry — Bendre, Kuvempu, the Vachanas, DVG's Kagga, our Janapada songs — is extraordinary, and much of it has never travelled beyond the language & literary context. Translating it is my way of carrying it across, and of reading it the only way I know how: with the attention of someone trained in science and engineering, looking for the structure beneath the beauty. The translation is an engineer’s attempt to decipher and interpret the poetry; it is neither set to a poetic metre nor does it use poetic techniques.

Everything here is a work in progress. I add poetry and verses, blogs & essays, as I finish them, and I always place my English beside the original so you can judge for yourself what survived the attempt — and what did not. I can be reached on Krishna.Joshi@outlook.com or on any of the Social Media platforms mentioned below. It would be wonderful to get feedback, advice, suggestions…