Book Review : Difficulty of Being Good

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Author : Gurcharan Das

A book very well written and very informative. It has wonderfully analyzed the subject on hand - Mahabhartha, its main characters and how they handled the situations when their integrity was in question or at stake. I have great appreciation for the author - Gurcharan Das, who has dealt with the issues very objectively without getting biased towards or prejudiced against any particular side in the dharam-yudh. This epic is so vast, great and complicated that it validates the point over and over again- "What is here is found elsewhere, what is not here is nowhere."

The book attempts to define two types of dharma - sadharan dharma and sva dharma. Former being associated to caste or varna or society and the latter is what defines the innte nature of an individual. For the perfect balance, these two need to work in unison but sometimes, they start conflicting with each other as was the case with Yudhishthir. The sadharan-dharma dictated him to function as a king, according to which, fighting/killing becomes part of the duties whereas his sva-dharma guided him to save every single individual no matter what.

I marvelled at one of the many observations of the author - "The epic is obsessed with questions of right and wrong and it analyses human failures constantly". All characters, without any exception, had to stoop down from their own high levels of being ardent dharma followers, when the situations arose.

Krishna - the God (or is he?), has a much larger than life role to play during His whole time on earth. Be it his childhood pranks in Gokul, his encounter with Kansa, his marriage expeditions and then his involvement with his dear friends Pandavas. While being a part of the battle between Kauravas and Pandavas, yet not directly involved as an active warrior, Krishna plots many plans to make Pandavas win the battle. He tries his best, as a peace messenger to avert the battle but when it is not possible, he believes that no matter what type of means are employed - fair or unfair, battle has to be won. The reason that Pandavas' cause is just, is sufficient enough to even use unjust means or tricks to achieve that result.

Other main characters of the epic are also a lot thought provoking - be it,
* Bhishma, who got his name after taking an oath - never to marry and to remain loyal to the throne of Hastinapur without giving it any thought that there may come some time when the king is not capable enough to deserve such loyalty. But he remained true to his words till his last breath.

* Karna, who even after coming to know of the fact that he was the brother of five Pandavas, remained loyal to his friend - Duryodhana and we do not find any flaw in this character except on two occasions when he was a party to the assembly where Draupadi was disgraced and when Abhimanyu was killed in a foul play. He remained "a true giver" all through his life. Our sympathies do go with this character, who had to pay for none of his faults.

*Yudhishthir, son of Dharma himself, who dared tread the path of doing what is expected of him at any given time, was put to tests many times by Dharma. In the end, Indra gave him an exceptional boon as he truly remained a great person and felt for other creatures more than how he felt for himself. We feel the anxiety, remorse and sadness that he finds himself in after the war. Despite having won the war, he considers himself a loser after the battle is over. He comes across as a very strong personality in the epic.

While reading this book, the readers would not be able to avoid getting many doubts and questions themselves. I think, the doubts basically on two planes - about some of the incidents that happened in Mahabharatha and then questions about the current times.

• Is it even feasible to compare the two times and trying to get the answers from the epic? Are not the two situations so mutually exclusive or for that matter, any two situations and times are so disjoint that comparison becomes impossible.
• What are we trying to achieve from this comparison? Fine, even at that time humans found it difficult to remain true to the path of dharma, is it a justification to not take - "being good" part that seriously.
• Is "being good or not good" a function of situation concerned?
• Who decides and on what basis can humans be good or not good at any particular time ?
• How important is the fairness of the means in achieving a fair result? And who decides the fairness of means or of the result?
• Can there be a broad definition of Dharma with which majority of people could relate and try to adhere to or is it too subjective and varied as the humans themselves are? The definition of Dharma was too varied for the characters of Mahabharatha themselves. Some did not think its wrong to sacrifice an individual for the benefit of majority whereas some were not ready to even sacrifice a single individual despite knowing the fact that that particular individual could bring more problems for others.
• The author very nicely puts - "if greed is the vice of capitalism, envy is the flaw of socialism". Is there a possibility of having a stable system for human race, which can atleast aim to do away with these faults?
• Is making the tricks (which Krishna plotted) public during the great battle, a way to convey the message to the world - to err is very much human.

The author has done a lot of research and compared the characters of this epic with many other kings and personalities from the world history. Really a thought provoking piece of writing and offers a lot of substance.