The Difficulty Of Being Good – On The Subtle Art Of Dharma by Gurcharan Das
Lipta Mahapatra, SPJIMR- Mumbai
Name of Book: The Difficulty of Being Good: On the subtle art of Dharma
Writer: Gurcharan Das House of Publication: Penguin Books India Year of Publication: 2010 Edition: 1 Number of Pages: 488 Price: `699
ISBN: 13-9780670083497 10-0670083496
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The Difficulty of Being Good: On the subtle art of Dharma examines the lapses in the moral values of mankind through our two thousand year old epic Mahabharata. The book is inspired from Mahabharata which prompted me to pick this book for reading. Our ancient epic is a tremendous source of knowledge and wisdom and Gurcharan Das probes us to stop and think – What is right and what is wrong.
The book begins with a brief introduction to the key happenings in Mahabharata – the dice game, exile to Pandavas, onset of the Great War, rise and fall of the greatest warriors. Thereafter the author presents the perspectives of the central characters – Duryodhana ' s Envy, Draupadi ' s Courage, Yudhishthira ' s Duty, Arjuna ' s Despair, Bhishma ' s Selflessness, Karna ' s Status Anxiety, Krishna ' s Guile, Ashwatthama ' s Revenge, Yudhishthira ' s Remorse and finally summing up everything in Mahabharata ' s Dharma. What I found interesting is that the human nature has remained the same over thousands of years. Gurcharan Das has aptly compared Duryodhana ' s envy towards Pandavas to that of Hitler ' s towards Jews. Duryodhana ' s jealousy led to the destruction of the Kaurava clan while Hitler ' s hunger for power and envy towards the Jews led to the Second World War and destruction of Germany.
As the author analyses the principal characters, he tries to draw a picture of the character and his nature. He begins with Duryodhana whose jealousy led to his own destruction. Duryodhana never tried to hide his harsh feelings towards the Pandavas. He had an egoistic philosophy and nurtured his evil feelings. Also, Mahabharata never makes the choice between the ' good ' and ' bad ' easy. For example, in the claim to the Hastinapur throne both Yudhishthira and Duryodhana were justified. Duryodhana ' s father was the elder son and since he was blind, the throne went to Yudhishthira ' s father Pandu. Yudhishthira was born to Pandu through niyoga whereas Duryodhana was naturally born to Dhritharashtra. Also Yudhishthira was born just minutes before Duryodhana was born. Even after Dhritharashtra divided the kingdom between the two lines, discontent remained with Duryodhana on seeing Pandavas prosperity. This is how the argument goes and we can never figure out who is right and who is wrong.
The famous ' game of dice ' is also questionable. Duryodhana might say that he just took advantage of a king ' s weakness for gambling whereas Yudhishthira might say that he was duped to play the game against a cheat as a king cannot refuse an offer on the day ' rajsuya ' ceremony is performed. Duryodhana might pronounce that Yudhishthira wasn ' t playing against a cheat but a player better than himself. Das connects this episode to the tiff between the Ambani brothers which prompted them to resort to legal proceedings. It ' s astonishing to find that relationships, emotions and reactions have remained very same through thousands of years.
The other famous or rather infamous incident in Mahabharata is the disrobing of Draupadi. No one in the
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