With “Fly on the Wall”, Odisha cadre IAS Shubha Sarma turns author

ODISHA cadre IAS of 1999 batch Shubha Sarma has turned author with her first book, Fly on the Wall and Other Stories. It is a collection of 13 short stories with subjects ranging from up-market settings (Dinner at Bukhara) to deep social strife (Flesh and Blood). Former UN diplomat and celebrated writer Shashi Tharoor describes the book as…
“a compelling read, overflowing with acutely-observed, cleverly plotted, artlessly-told stories that hold your attention from the first to the last”. Tharoor who is now a minister of state in UPA government launched the book in a simple function held in New Delhi on Thursday. The guests included Sarma’s boss and Union culture minister Chandresh Kumari Katoch, noted poet and critic K Satchidanandan and a large number of bureaucrats, writers and friends of Sarma.
Born and brought up in Lucknow, Shubha Sarma is a post graduate in international relations from Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) before entering into IAS. Earlier, she had served as district magistrate of Koraput and deputy secretary in the Union ministry of commerce. Now, she is the private secretary to the Union culture minister Katoch at the rank of a director.
A yoga practitioner, Sarma, 37, loves travelling, cycling and swimming. She is fond of dogs, and as it’s described in the introduction of the author, she enjoys tending to her bonsai collection in spare time.
Her husband and batch-mate in the cadre Bhaskar Jyoti Sarma is now a director level officer under the ministry of power. Earlier, he was in the cabinet secretariat.
From mundane file-notings to “Fly on the Wall”, Sarma has made a remarkable debut as an English fiction writer. Tharoor calls her “a gifted story-teller of undoubted promise”. “I look forward to more from her pen”, he says.