The book `The Difficulty of Doing Good, The Subtle Art of Dharma,' is certainly a book for the times; perhaps a book that will also stand the test of time.
However, it is a relief for me to state the above. Please allow me to explain.
A suspicion of Time Thieves
I got a sudden email from a friend of mine the week before, stating we must go to `this.' The `this' in question was a lecture by Gurucharan Das based on his new book, at Harvard University in Cambridge. I responded expressing interest. But I was not sure how much time I had to make the trip given that it was in the middle of the week, and there was every chance that I might have to travel as well.
I was also unsure because I was suspicious. Writers, it seems to me, want to go back and mine the epics time and again. No complaint there. But I worry that they are doing so either as a crutch for their own original critical thinking or worse to borrow from the reputation of the given epic. A different breed of writer, is afflicted with a second curse. And this is especially true for modern writers. And that is the '10-point how to be successful book.' `Leadership Secrets of Atilla the Hun' and other such titles come to mind. And for that, I have no time.
The lecture was on a Tuesday early evening. All day at work, I kept my eye on the clock (and gave my friend a 90% probability during the course of the day that I would make it). Mercifully, no work related fire-drills, or a request to dash to NYC popped, and I jumped on the Red Line from the Financial District to Cambridge.
August Company
I found my friend in the auditorium when I got there. It was a rather wet day, so I had to mind my umbrella. I was pleasantly surprised to see the auditorium well populated already. Not so few attending, that I would feel trapped. Not so many that I would feel like I was at a superficial, but popular event.
As we were sitting and chatting a distinguished gentleman in gray was striding down the middle stairs and checking out the arrangements in front for the panelists. My friend nudged me and asked, `do you know who that is?` I looked at her askance. She whispered `Professor Sugata Bose.` The name did not mean anything to me other than that it might be of Bengali origin.
I soon learned that this was the eminent Historian who deliberated on the role of the Indian Ocean in world History and also the grandson and grand nephew of the most famous of the Indian Freedom fighters.
I settled down, set aside any lingering suspicions or misgivings about being there and prepared to don the mask of an attentive listener.
I have seen you, but have not heard you before
The person of Gurucharan Das who stood in front of us, I have seen several thousand times. A polished corporate speaker. Knows what he is going to say. Says it and not anymore. A few personal references to connect with the audience. Enough self-deprecation and enough humor. Knew how much energy to spend on this lecture and how much to save for the one next day at MIT. Spoke in succinct paragraphs. Said what he was going to say. Said it. And summarized what he said. A corporate speechwriter would have been proud.
But what Gurucharan Das said, was unlike any of the corporate speeches I have heard. He spoke with the conviction of a man who had employed all his personal skills, resources, time and energy in asking questions of the great epic, Mahabharata. And the answers he derives from interrogating the text are his own. This was not a speech written by a corporate speechwriter.
He laid out a few markers that stood in mind. He talked about how the action in the epic stops all of a sudden and how the characters in the scene discuss it. He discussed how good and bad were all mixed up not just in the characters but in the nature of good and bad itself. He teased out some aspects of the story that those of us who have grown hearing it and reading it might have missed (like Karna's enduring passion for Draupadi). And finally he raised the questions that the epic raises against today's problems; the current wars, the current crisis in governance, and the shocking apathy in the public sphere.
The riposte by his two hosts, both professors at Harvard, were scintillating. They drew out aspects of what the author said in genuinely original and authentic ways. However, I had to chuckle to myself. Being the son of a professor myself, I can smell professors and their professorial tendencies a mile away. Take it from me, that when a professor says, "I would like to make one last point," they do not mean it.
After Party
My friend bought a book and got it signed by the author. I demurred. I have my friend, the iPad, and I read books on that. So no paper copies for me, author's signature or otherwise.
On the ride back home we chatted about the speech and about the author and recalled various interesting things we had heard.
On one point we were agreed. This was no ordinary re-telling of the epic.
But how does he write?
I shared my experience of the evening with family and friends. My brother wrote back to me that he was a fellow panelist with the author when was touring India in 2000. Several friends reminded me that that author is a regular columnist in the Times of India and other newspapers.
It is one thing to speak well. But it is a whole different skill to write. And within even that genre, it takes a particular type of skill to deliver a tangy, provocative news op-ed. And another to sustain an interrogation of a few thousand year old epic. The opinion of the author's news columns, at least in my network of friends and family, was decidedly mixed.
But I was intrigued enough by the speech that I decided `to buy' what the author was selling. So with fresh trepidation and anticipation I downloaded the book on the Kindle Application of my iPad.
The Difficulty of Being Good
The cover of the book itself is pleasing. Subtle earth tones and simply laid out without too much commotion. Neither austere nor too loud.
One of my favorite books is `The Founding Brothers,' by the historian Joseph Ellis. There he delivers a particular historical scene succinctly. He then goes about setting the context for it, and then finally delivers its meaning and import (and example being the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr).
Gurucharn Das' approach is not exactly the same but similar. He runs through the backbone of the epic quickly, so the reader is up to speed on what the story is and who the main characters are. Even for a reader like me who perhaps is familiar with the epic, this was a good refresher. It is written in a `lets get to the point quickly' style, but as a reader you realize that it is a palate cleanser for the complex meals to come ahead.
In the author's take on the epic, the central event appears to be the episode of Queen Draupadi's humiliation in the King's court. One would normally assume that this particular scene was a dramatic episode. But that the central scenes were Arjuna's dilemma or even Karna's demise. But what the author is exploring is the question of Dharma. And the central question of Dharma is posed by the humiliated Queen to the assembly of Nobles.
This exposition alone is worth the price of the book. The author brings such vitality to the scene. Asks such penetrating questions of the characters assembled. He builds so many layers to the answer. This is a tour de force. A bravura chapter. And he keeps bringing this back again and again throughout the book.
The other chapter that stood out for me is the one on Krishna. How was this modern, yet sincere and passionate intellect going to interpret this complex figure. Devotionally? Skeptically? Historically? Pragmatically? Agnostically? The author smartly discusses the character of Krishna in the epic in the context of literary history and succeeds in shedding new light. More importantly, his reading is impartial and he astutely leaves things well alone, contradictions and all.
The most important learning for me, among the many was the concept of reciprocal altruism, which the author explains well and uses a device to explain it, that business and economics students are familiar with, namely the Prisoner's Delimma, from Game Theory (The book Thinking Strategically by Avinash Dixit is a terrific example in this genre).
Some quibbles for my efforts
There were some aspects of the book that did not work for me. These are more in the nature of quibbles than finding a serious flaw in the work.
The author constantly refers to `his dharma-search' throughout the book. That is fine for a preface or the introduction. But to repeatedly see that phrase throughout the book, interfered with my enjoyment of the flow. It seemed like I would be enjoying a challenging point that the author was making, and then I would be distracted by being reminded that this was a part of the author's `dharma search.' This, I did not need to be reminded of constantly.
The contemporary examples employed in the book were hit or miss. The example of the bureaucratic response to which color ink to use was hilarious. The multiple references to the story of the Ambani brothers felt like the author was playing to the gallery. References to pre-eminent political figures felt like name dropping.
The author brings up evolutionary biology in the passing. There is a lot happening there. There is an entire chapter, essay or even book that is waiting to be written there. It was intriguing that he would make the connection.
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