Buy a new car, promptly place a Ganesha on the dashboard, perform a ‘car puja' and hope for a joy ride. But how many of us pay heed to traffic rules? Do we take it for granted that Ganesha will protect us if we drove without fastening the seatbelts? V. Raghunathan questions this and many other practices followed in the name of superstition in his book, Ganesha on the Dashboard (Penguin publication).
Elaborating on his book through which he questions the shocking lack of scientific temper, he says, “Even as a kid I used to wonder if God will do us a favour because we promise to put some money in the temple.” But the trigger to pen a tome on this subject came much later. “In recent times, all this was stacking up on my assessment of Indian-ness of the Indians. My book Games Indians Play (Penguin) questioned this. Ganesha on the Dashb oard merely added another layer on Indian-ness. The idea crystallised during my chats with my brother-in-law M.A. Eswaran (also the co-author of this book). Unfortunately, Eswaran passed away in November 2011. But I had full benefit of my chats with him,” he says, recounting on the genesis of the book.
Does the lack of scientific temper stem from the fact that as children, we are not encouraged to question anything associated with religious sentiments? The question, he says, is not an easy one to answer. “We lack an education system that encourages questioning. But the most important reason, I feel, is that we believe that the knowledge system and belief system belong to two different worlds. We are taught to believe as if scientific temper can have a place in the knowledge system, but not in the belief system. For example, does our school education teach us whether scientific methods can be used to ascertain if astrology can predict the future?” asks Raghunathan.
The author also feels the lack of scientific temper is also a result of how our way of life has developed over the millennia. The flipside of Hinduism's fluidity, he says, has lead to the original tenets being replaced with meaningless rituals, symbolisms and beliefs that are inconsistent with its scientific origins.
Raghunathan is practical when he says he doesn't hope to dramatically change the mindset of his readers. “I wish books could do such things. But I do believe that a reader who reads the book with an open mind is bound to inject some scientific temper into his or her belief system,” he quips.
The choice of subjects in his previous books range from investment to parenting. Among them, he chooses Corruption Conundrum and Other Paradoxes and Dilemmas (Penguin 2010) as the book he enjoyed writing the most, though it was a fun read than about corruption. “But perhaps due to fatigue factor surrounding the word ‘corruption', this book never saw a reprint,” he says.
A frequent traveller and a columnist, Raghunathan divides his time between writing, reading and work (he is the CEO of GMR Varalakshmi Foundation). Like most writers, Raghunathan is also a voracious reader. “It is the writing where I have to consciously devote time and ensure that I average 90 minutes of writing each day. I guess I have logged in my 10,000 hours of writing by now (as Malcolm Gladwell would put it). I have always found that usually it is the regularity of habit rather than quantity of time that is crucial,” he signs off.
