BOOK REVIEW - "THE DIFFICULTY OF BEING GOOD" BY GURCHARAN DAS

Finished reading the book" The Difficulty of being good" by Gurcharan Das. What a book!!Highly recommended - if you are interested to understand mythology, politics,history and psychology of human behavior - then, this is the book. I wrote in my last review of his book, 'India Unbound" that he is one author, who believes in extensive research and comparative studies. Even for this one, he not only studied Sanskrit from Chicago University but also researched other texts from different cultures like Greek mythology, psychology and Bible. His idea of learning Sanskrit was to have the first hand knowledge so that he can understand the Mahabharata in its true sense and then give his own interpretation, which is much more humane and logical than godly. He thinks the epic is obsessed with questions of right and wrong and it analyses human failures constantly. He has not touched Gita but the story of the Mahabharata and its characters. , We, the people, have not changed much since the days of the Mahabharata when it comes to greed, anger, Pride, manipulation, hatred, ego, status, politics, power and money. He also has shown how goodness has its own limitations.

The author has tried to understand how the moral ideas playing behind the psyche of the characters in the Mahabharta relates to our lives in both a personal and a broader social and political sense. It is about our incomplete lives, about good people acting badly, about how difficult it is to be good in this world. The author quotes , "nature does not give a man virtue; the process of becoming a good man is an art. " This is an epic which sees a vice behind every virtue, a snake behind every horse, and a doomsday behind every victory, an uncompleted ritual behind every completed sacrifice.

He has dedicated the chapters in the names of all the prime characters of Mahabharta and then analyzed their psyche, which is wonderful, interesting and a great read. This reminded me of another book, called “Mrituyanjay” which i read a long time ago,by Shivaji Sawant. He also had divided the chapters under the names of these characters and gave us the synopsis from each character's point of view. After reading these 2 books, i realized that even today if we put these characters in the same exact situations, i am sure they will act the same. Human psyche is such. It is not the people but the circumstances which is responsible for us to behave or react in a certain way. As I have mentioned before that the author has raised many questions in the book.

EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK :

Cheerful throughout the epic, Krishna becomes grave after Duryodhan's death and he gives a sobering message to the victors : Listen Pandavas, the Kauravas were great warriors and you could not have defeated them in a fair fight. So, I had to use deceit, trickery, and magic on your behalf... To defeat Duryodhana fairly was even beyond the messengers of death. So, let's not get carried away by Bhima's heroics. We have succeeded, it is evening now-let us go home and rest. Instead of celebrating his side's triumph, Krishna becomes subdued. 

The Mahabharata is clearly uncomfortable with Krishna's conduct during the war. This explains, in part, why the mood of the epic now swings downward. There may have been good reasons why Krishna had to do what he did to win-----the good had to defeat evil; the world had to be brought to an end before a new age could be ushered in----but the epic does not believe that the ends justify the means. It does not approve of the breaking of the rules of warfare. It does not believe a dharmayuddha, 'just war', can be fought unjustly. It is resigned to the fact that war cannot be abolished; hence, the rules of war are a way to make it tolerable.

he epic is ambivalent about Krishna's pragmatic defense. It refuses to accept the idea that good consequences outweigh evil methods. Ultimately, there seems to be an austere and unforgiving streak of dharma which appears to run through the epic. If good persons are not allowed to win by any means, and if they must fight justly,then one must be prepared to face the fact that they might lose. There is no guarantee that truth and goodness will prevail in human history. The Pandavas must accept this and wait, perhaps, for another day. The important thing is that they fight fairly. Since they did not, they failed in their dharma. Therefore,they have to be judged and punished. Accordingly, the Pandavas are not allowed to 'live happily ever after.'

The Mahabharata understands that war is terrible. Hence, it lays down elaborate rules of fighting. It reminds warriors that fighting should be broken off at sunset; one does not strike the enemy from behind; one does not engage in ambush or surprise attacks. The epic creates limits on the intensity and duration of the combat or the suffering of soldiers. Yet, it is also cynical about these restraints.It doubts if these rules will be observed. It has the same mocking attitude that we have towards the defective Geneva Convention. When the best of men, the Pandavas, break those rules, then what about ordinary persons? It is not easy to be good.