The Difficulty of being Good: On the Subtle Art of Dharma

In his new book, Gurcharan Das turns to the "Mahabharata" in order to answer the question, 'why be good?', and discovers that the epic's world of moral haziness and uncertainty is closer to our experience as ordinary human beings than the narrow and rigid positions that define most debate in this fundamentalist age of moral certainty. The "Mahabharata" is obsessed with the elusive notion of dharmaoin essence, doing the right thing. When a hero falters, the action stops and everyone weighs in with a different and often contradictory take on dharma. The epic's characters are flawed, but their incoherent experiences throw light on our familiar dilemmas. Gurcharan Das' best-selling book "India Unbound" examined the classical aim of artha, material well being. This, his first book in seven years, dwells on the goal of dharma, moral well being. It addresses the central problem of how to live our lives in an examined wayoholding a mirror up to us and forcing us to confront the many ways in which we deceive ourselves and others. What emerges is a doctrine of dharma that we can apply to our business decisions, political strategies and interpersonal relationshipsoin effect, to life itself.

Gurcharan Das is the author of the much-acclaimed India Unbound. He was CEO of Procter & Gamble India before he took early retirement to become a full-time writer. He writes a regular column for six Indian newspapers, including the Times of India, and occasionally for Newsweek, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Foreign Affairs.