Gurcharan Das

Writer

Born: 3 October 1943

He is an Indian author, who wrote a trilogy based on the classical Indian goals of the ideal life.
India Unbound was the first volume (2002), on artha, ‘material well-being’, which narrated the story of India’s economic rise from Independence to the global information age.
Published in many languages and filmed by BBC, it was called “a quiet earthquake” by the Guardian.
The second, The Difficulty of Being Good, is on dharma or ‘moral well-being’, and is “rich with learned musings on the epic, Mahabharata and its moral dilemmas” that speak to our day to day contemporary life. Kama: The Riddle of Desire is on the third goal of desire, and recounts a tale of “love and vulnerability, about self-doubt and betrayal, about wanting more of everything and being haunted by settling for less.”
He graduated with honors from Harvard University in Philosophy.
He was later attended Harvard Business School (AMP), where he is featured in three case studies.
He was CEO of Procter & Gamble India and later managing director, Procter & Gamble Worldwide (Strategic Planning).
At age 50, he took early retirement to become a full-time writer.
He is a regular columnist for The Times of India and five Indian language newspapers in Hindi, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, and Gujarati.
He also contributes periodically to Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times.
Aside from the trilogy, his other literary works include a novel, A Fine Family, two book-length essays, India Grows at Nights: A Liberal Case for a Strong State, The Elephant Paradigm, and an anthology, Three English Plays.