Gurcharan Das

Gurcharan Das
Gurcharan Das
Born (1943-10-03) 3 October 1943 (age 81)
Lyallpur, British India
OccupationAuthor

Gurcharan Das (born 3 October 1943) is an Indian author who wrote a trilogy based on the classical Indian goals of the ideal life.[1][2][3][4]

India Unbound was the first volume (2002), on artha, 'material well-being', which narrated the story of India's economic rise from Independence to the global information age. Published in many languages and filmed by BBC,[5] it was called "a quiet earthquake" by the Guardian.[6] The second, The Difficulty of Being Good, is on dharma or 'moral well-being', and is "rich with learned musings on the epic, Mahabharata and its moral dilemmas"[7] that speak to our day to day contemporary life. Kama: The Riddle of Desire is on the third goal of desire, and recounts a tale of "love and vulnerability, about self-doubt and betrayal, about wanting more of everything and being haunted by settling for less."[8]

Das graduated with honours from Harvard University in Philosophy. He had later attended Harvard Business School (AMP), where he is featured in three case studies. He was CEO of Procter & Gamble India and later managing director, Procter & Gamble Worldwide (Strategic Planning). At age 50, he took early retirement to become a full-time writer.

Das is a regular columnist for The Times of India[9] and five Indian language newspapers in Hindi, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, and Gujarati.[10] He also contributes periodically to Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. Aside from the trilogy, his other literary works include a novel, A Fine Family, two book length essays, India Grows at Nights: A Liberal Case for a Strong State, The Elephant Paradigm, and an anthology, Three English Plays.[11]

  1. ^ The three volumes have been published in English by Penguin Random House: India Unbound in 2000, The Difficulty of Being Good in 2008, and Kama: The Riddle of Desire in 2018. India Unbound was also published in the US by Knopf and in the UK by Profile Books in 2002. The Difficulty of Being Good was published in the US by Oxford University Press. The books have also been translated into many languages.
  2. ^ Prasad, Amar Nath; Rukhaiyar, U. S. (1 January 2003). Studies in Indian English fiction and poetry. Sarup & Sons. pp. 146–. ISBN 978-81-7625-368-0. Retrieved 26 September 2011.
  3. ^ "Gurcharan Das on why it's lonely being an Indian liberal". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 24 July 2024.
  4. ^ "The Dilemma of an Indian Liberal". carnegieendowment.org. Retrieved 24 July 2024.
  5. ^ BBC Television: India Business Report: The Road Ahead, 9 March 2003, 11 am and 10 pm
  6. ^ The Guardian, London, 10 June 2002.
  7. ^ William Dalrymple, Financial Times, London, 24 September 2010
  8. ^ Arshia Sattar, 'Infinite Passions', Open Magazine, 5 October 2018.
  9. ^ Das, Gurcharan (23 February 2019). "Who are we Indians? Genetics is bringing bad news for the politics of identity: We are all migrants". The Times of India. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
  10. ^ The five Indian language newspapers are Dainik Bhaskar (Hindi), Eenadu (Telugu), Lokmat (Marathi), Hindu (Tamil), Divya Bhaskar (Gujarati).
  11. ^ All of the books of Gurcharan Das are currently in print, published by Penguin Random House India. The years of publication are: A Fine Family (1990), India Grows at Nights: A Liberal Case for a Strong State (2012), The Elephant Paradigm (2004), and an anthology, Three English Plays (2011).