Keki N. Daruwalla (born 24 January 1937) is an Indian poet and short story writer in English. He is also a former Indian Police Service officer. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award, in 1984 for his poetry collection, The Keeper of the Dead, by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters. He was awarded Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award in India, in 2014. Early life and education Keki Nasserwanji Daruwalla was born in Lahore to a Parsi family in 1937. His father, N.C. Daruwalla, was an eminent professor, who taught in Government College Lahore. Before the Partition of India, his family left undivided India in 1945 and moved to Junagarh and then to Rampur in India. As a result, he grew up studying in various schools and in various languages. He obtained his master's degree in English Literature from Government College, Ludhiana, University of Punjab spent a year at Oxford as a Queen Elizabeth House Fellow in 1980–81 He joined the Police Service in 1958. Working as a police officer offered him various opportunities to work in different parts of the country. He witnessed the harsh realities of life from which he drew the substance for his literary pursuits. He has written twelve books and his first novel for Pepper and Christ was published in 2009. He received Commonwealth Poetry Prize for his collection of poems, Landscape in the year 1987. Career He was appointed in the Uttar Pradesh cadre of the Indian Police Service (IPS) on 24 October 1958 after competitive examination. On his first central deputation, he worked as Area Organiser, Chamoli, in Joshimath in the erstwhile Special Service Bureau (now, Sashastra Seema Bal) till 1965. On subsequent central deputation, he worked as Special Assistant on International Affairs to the Prime Minister, Charan Singh from 2 August 1979 to 19 January 1980. Subsequently, he resigned from the IPS to join the Research and Analysis Service (RAS), the internal cadre of R&AW. Within R&AW he rose to the rank of Special Secretary. When his batchmate, Ajit Singh Syali, was promoted to Secretary, R&AW, Daruwalla was shifted as chairman, Joint Intelligence Committee, in the rank of Secretary, on 29 July 1993. He retired as chairman, JIC in 1995. Post-retirement, he was a member of National Commission for Minorities from 3 February 2011 to 2 February 2014. His first book of poetry was Under Orion, which was