In an age where erratic duty schedules to keep law and order and heavy paperwork besiege the average policeman, police constable Jagdish Wasave has found a way to wield words with dexterity in addition to his weapons.

Thirty-eight-year-old Wasave, presently posted at Nagpada police station, has written over 1,500 poems in Marathi on individuals ranging from his own grandfather to President Pratibha Patil.

Wasave, who was earlier a fisherman, now hopes to publish his latest compilation, Kavyasangraha, as a “tribute to the police force”. It will be a compilation of 100 poems by him, all on police personnel.

“I was born a fisherman and not a poet and studied only up to class 10. However, in the same sudden way in which I enrolled in the police force, I started writing poems in 2007. It began as meaningless doodling on the notepad while traveling to work and the next thing I knew is I had written a few lines on a family member or a friend, describing his values and work,” said Wasave.

After writing poems on all members of his family he went on to freedom fighters, celebrities, politicians, spiritual leaders and eventually policemen.

His poems have a unique style, as their length and meaning are defined by the number of letters in the name of the person being written about.

“If the name of the subject is Pratibha Patil, the poem will be of 13 lines equivalent to the number of letters in her name. The first sentence will begin with a word starting with P, the next with words starting with R, A, T, I, B, H, A and so on. The last words of the lines will show the person’s work or post. For example, the last words of each line when read vertically would read President of India,” he explained.

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