Abhay Kumar is an Indian author, poet, artist and diplomat. His book River Valley to Silicon Valley tries to draw the portrait of a modern young Indian. His work in the field of Gov2.0 & digital diplomacy, philosophical poetry, planetary scale of thinking in his art works and writings on Global democracy envision a second renaissance on the planet.
His literary work began with his first book River Valley to Silicon Valley that tells his story 'from the banks of the river’s valley to Silicon Valley, and how his brothers and he overcame their handicaps to achieve what they eventually did. This is also a commentary on the tremendous change in India, its values and culture and how education and competition can make way for anybody to break out of the mould. His story may well be an analogy for an emerging India today. He wrote several poems while in Moscow which have been put into three volumes Enigmatic Love, Fallen Leaves of Autumn and Candling the Light.
His art works are minimalist in nature and create allegory of planetary consciousness. The geometry of Malevich and the musical coloured vision of Matyushin gain typical Indian color vibrancy and even somewhat folklore inflections in his abstract and half-abstract works. His works explore different colours, forms, shapes and the stages of life. Veteran art critic Suneet Chopra finds it fascinating the way he uses a blend of dots, lines, colours, spaces and even geometric shapes in his works. According to Rajeev Lochan, Director of the National Gallery of Modern Art, his artistic works address the realized worldly issues with a sense of introspection. As per Georgina Maddox of Indian Express, Kumar's paintings lean toward abstraction while trying to capture the cosmic beauty of the earth through geometric forms and colours.
He was an early adapter to digital media, started his blog Ideas & Universe in April 2005 and since then has been working on a number of digital initiatives to connect Indian diplomats spread over the globe. He set up Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts of Public Diplomacy Division of the Ministry of External Affairs. He has been called Geek by the Indian Express because of his pivotal role in bringing Twitter to the central stage in the affairs of the Ministry of External Affairs, India and has been credited with providing real time updates on evacuation of Indians from Libya in March 2011. He received Gov2.in 2011 Award on behalf of the Public Diplomacy Division, Ministry of External Affairs
Global democracy and the role of mobile internet in transforming the public sphere have been recurring themes in his writings. His Op-Ed 'Birth of Global Democracy' in The Times of India has been quoted in serious journals of international affairs. He believes whatever be our individual, social or other interests, we should not forget that we have only one cosmic home, Earth.
His art works include paintings, photography and sculpture. He has taken part in several personal and group exhibitions in St. Petersburg, Paris & New Delhi. He represented India in the II International Independent Art Festival 'Sea Level' in St. Petersburg in October, 2009.
In St. Petersburg, he met and visited studios of several well known artists and collected their art works. Over a period of three years works of noted Russian contemporary masters such as Timur Novikov, Nikolai Sazhin, Bob Koshelokhov, Sergey Bugaev Afrika, Aron Zinshtein became part of his art collection.
He authored a book on St. Petersburg art life titled 'Colours of the Soul' dedicated to the great city of St. Petersburg and its people.
He was Coach Persona in February 2011, with his portrait appearing on cover page of the popular St. Petersburg magazine Coach.
His art exhibition 'We have come far' highlighted the journey of life from the state of non-being to the state of being, then 10,000 years of civilization's journey of mankind and strengthened hope of the whole humanity coming together soon. Art columnist Georgina Maddox in her article 'A Second Life' in Indian Express put him in par with prominent artists such as Paul Gauguin, Henri Rousseau, Sudhir Patwardhan and Bhupen Khakhar who have created a distinct oeuvre pursuing their passion along side their professional commitments.