Gurcharan Das is an author and public intellectual, best known for a much-acclaimed trilogy on the classical Indian goals of life. India Unbound was the first, on artha, which offered a personal account of India’s recent social and economic rise; the second, The Difficulty of Being Good, on dharma, ‘moral well-being’, illuminates our day to day moral dilemmas through a meditation on the epic, Mahabharata; Kama: The Riddle of Desire, on the third goal, teaches how to cherish desire in order to live a rich, flourishing life.
He was the CEO of Procter & Gamble India. At 50, he took early retirement to become a full-time writer. He writes a regular column for the Times of India and five Indian language papers, and contributes to Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Affairs. 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.