An engaging account that goes beyond sex and sexuality to explore desire in the contemporary Indian social order

Given my feminist orientation, any book on "desire" would strike alarm bells, and when it is with reference to the Kamasutra, one may worry about the exoticisation of the erotic. Gurcharan Das's book came as a pleasant antidote to the usual commodification of women in such a text. While the Kamasutra is a running thread, Das presents its critique in terms of a modern, gender-just outlook.

The winner takes it all

Indian Express

Meghnad Desai Posted online: Saturday , Sep 12, 2009 at 0008 hrs

The Difficulty of Being Good: On the Subtle Art of Dharma

Gurcharan Das

Allen Lane

Pages: 434

Rs 699

Gurcharan Das is a multi-talented man. He has been a successful business leader, an author of plays and novels and the book India Unbound, which told the world that India had arrived. Now he has taken on the difficult task of reading the Mahabharata and interpreting its many messages in light of contemporary circumstances.