Nainital
Literature
Festival

Gurcharan Das is an author, commentator, and public intellectual. He is best known for a much-acclaimed trilogy on the classical Indian goals of life. India Unbound was the first, on artha or ‘material well-being,’ it offers a personal account of India’s economic rise and is available in 17 languages and filmed by the BBC— the Guardian called it 'a quiet earthquake. The second, The Difficulty of Being Good, on dharma, ‘moral well-being’, illuminates our day to day moral dilemmas, and ‘one of the best things I’ve read about contribution of great literature to ethical thought,’ according to the philosopher, Martha Nussbaum. Kama: The Riddle of Desire, on the third goal, teaches how to cherish desire in order to live a rich, flourishing life.

He graduated in philosophy with honors from Harvard University, where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa for ‘high attainments in liberal scholarship.’ He later attended Harvard Business School (AMP) where he is featured in four case studies. He was CEO of Procter & Gamble India and Managing Director, Procter & Gamble Worldwide (Strategic Planning) before he quit to become a full-time writer. He writes a regular column for the Times of India and other Indian language papers, and contributes to Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and New York Times. He is a speaker to some of the world’s largest corporations.

His other books include India Grows at Night: A liberal case for a strong state, which was on the FT’s best books for 2013; a novel, A Fine Family; a book of essays, The Elephant Paradigm, and an anthology, Three Plays. He has edited for Penguin a 15-volume economic and business history of India. He lives in Delhi with his wife.