Khare himself has quite a stock to his name -- Thirteen Poems, Hunger, The Circle, Swimming Into The Dark, Survivors, Return to Mandhata and the recent Notebook of a Footsoldier & Other Stories. And there's plenty following.

Apart from a collection of drawings in ink, he is also ready with his next book. The Dangs goes to the place of the same name in south Gujarat and the 13 to 14 tribal communities that live in the area. "My concern is the environment, and marginalised people. The resilience of our traditional communities has been the biggest influence of my life. I am not an activist, I am a traveller. And I'm using my skills as an artist to bring all this to the people."

When he is not visiting the interiors of the country,Khare can be found in Pune, a city which gives him "the elbow room" to write. "When the muse visits me, I write like a maniac. It's a very intense experience. Writing to me is a means of finding meaning in my life, of saving myself."

He goes back to the time when `Silent Scream', a mammoth poem that came out of 10 days of misery and a subsequent four-day writing session, helped him out of a nervous breakdown. `Silent Scream' and `Green is the Colour of Memory' take up two huge portions of his fifth volume of poems, due to be out in the market soon. Then there is Last Jungle on Earth, a futuristic fable.

Khare is pretty sure that there are enough buyers for all that is being churned out in the literature market. It's just that most people don't have the guts to pick up the books they really want to read, never mind if it is being shortlisted for the Booker or not.

-- ANINIDITA DUTTA ROY