The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : ‘The difficulty of being good’ released

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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

‘The difficulty of being good’ released

Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD: An incisive analysis of India’s economic transformation established Gurcharan Das as an author. With his latest book, The Difficulty of Being Good, the CEO turned writer has returned to philosophy, a subject he studied as a student in Harvard.

“I wrote about Artha. Now I have written about Dharma,” he said opening the panel discussion on his book here on Tuesday.

“One of India’s biggest challenges is the lack of civic virtue, of accountability in governance. Through my book I am seeking a notion of civic virtue.”

The Difficulty of Being Good, dwells on the ‘Subtle Art of Dharma’ in Vyasa’s Mahabharata. “Why the Mahabharata? Because it is obsessed with Dharma,” said Mr. Das as the panellists thrashed out the epic, its interpretations, nuances, texts and sub-texts trying to pen down that elusive concept…dharma.

“The word has no equivalent in any other language,” pointed out panellist K. Anji Reddy, founder-chairman, Dr. Reddy’s.

Mr. Das agreed that the word has meant many things over the centuries from righteousness to religion to duty. “The Mahabharata is the only epic to deal with politics so exhaustively. I wanted to narrate the Mahabharata like never before. So I let the text speak to the readers.”

And it seems to have succeeded.

“The book is infuriating, it makes you want to quarrel with the author. That is what makes it a great book,” said panellist Jyotirmaya Sharma, writer and professor of politics, University of Hyderabad.

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