Das and The Mahabharatha

BANGALORE: When Gurcharan Das speaks, everybody listens. A management guru in his own right, yet he has the innate capacity of simplifying even the toughest management concepts for laypersons. Which is what he discusses in his new book, `The Difficulty of Being Good: On the Subtle Art of Dharma'.
Das draws parallels from one of India's beloved epics -- The Mahabharath -- to discuss governance, politics, management and ambiguity of good and evil.A riveting talk by the author on his latest offering was organized by The Centre for Corporate Governance, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, on Wednesday. The event was also open to the public.
On Rahul Gandhi's answer to his questions, Das pointed out: "Rahul Gandhi believes that to feel remorse is to identify with victims' families. It's when we learn to identify with one another that we have a democracy."
According to Das, The Mahabharath is unlike The Ramayana because in the latter the characters were too perfect. "But there are many grey areas in the former. The stories in The Mahabharath can be used to teach our children," Das said.
In his new book, he talks about how the world is uneven due to people's flaws. "The answer is dharma (righteousness)... Ultimately, in a society you need restraints and dharma is a form of restraint," he explained.
About noted mathematician and economist John Nash, Das said even the Nobel laureate had talked about the asymmetry of information, which primarily led to the dotcom bubble bursting, and recently the US sub-prime crisis.
Then the forum was thrown open to the public, which was moderated by professor Gita Sen, IIM-B. Sen asked Das on how a self-professed libertarian would suddenly declare such great love for restraint.
Das quickly drew the audience's attention to the recent Satyam debacle. While drawing a parallel from The Mahabharath, he said R Raju didn't do what he did because of greed but because of his excessive love for his sons.
To sum it up, Das quoted from the last passage of his book: "An act of goodness is one of the few genuine things of worth in the world."