Parthasarathy is one of the two major voices in In­dian English poetry, from South India. He has had a variegated career ranging from teaching to editing and the ambience of his poetic world has also been varied as he has moved from place to place, from Srirangam to Bombay, to Madras, to Delhi, to England and back. The disturbing and moving experiences he has had, from this extreme mobility, form the matrix of his poetry making it primarily a poetry of experience.
Born in 1934, at Thirupparaithurai near Tiruchirapalli, Parthasarathy experienced the first trauma of transplantation when he moved to Bombay to be educated in Don Bosco and later in Bombay University. He worked as a lecturer in English in Ezekiel’s department at Mithibai College, Bombay. This is the period Parthasarathy is referring to as “He had spent his youth whoring/after English gods”. He was a British Council Scholar at Leeds University where he worked for a diploma in English studies.

The year 1963-64 in England was significant for Parthasarathy as it proved to be a culture shock — “My encoun­ter with England only reproduced the by-now familiar pattern of Indian experience in England: disenchantment” (“Whoring After English Gods”) This ‘disenchantment’, however, was ex­tremely productive as it brought forth some of the finest poems in Indian English poetry on cultural encounter. (‘Poems of Exile’ — 1963-66). Giving up teaching, Parthasarathy entered publish­ing and joined Oxford University Press as its Regional Editor in Madras and later moved over to Delhi. At present, Parthasarathy is in New York State. Parthasarathy’s other interests include music, film, theatre and painting. Of late, Parthasarathy is emerging as a bilingual writer and more importantly, as a translator of Tamil and Sanskrit writings into English.