Interviewed by Sohaila Kapur, published on 18th January, 2015, for the Deccan Herald

Author Devdutt Pattanaik, physician-turned-author of best-sellers on mythology, recently released Pashu, his book of short stories for children, which he has also illustrated, in New Delhi. Here are excerpts from an interview:

Why have you taken to writing about mythology?
Reading about mythology was a hobby. I started writing about it because I realised I knew much more than others. Besides, academicians don’t write for the public and books for the public don’t do research. I try and bridge the gap. I enjoy the process, particularly because I realised that people are ignorant about those stories. So far, I have published 35 books on the subject.

Why is mythology so important in India?
It’s not just India. No culture exists without mythology. However, it is a highly political term today. The West assumes it has moved out of mythology to religion and from religion to secularism and rationality. But if you study it, you will see that it has just moved from one mythology of many gods, to another mythology of one god, to a new mythology of no god. In a few years, they will move on to the fourth mythology. In India we never moved from one to another. We jut embraced everything. So, depending on who you are, you may believe in many gods, one god, or even be an atheist… and each belief brings with it certain strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

When did you start writing books?
I started writing 20 years ago. I used to write for a magazine and then my editor introduced me to my first publisher. That’s how my first book, Shiva: An Introduction, got written. I just narrated stories about the symbols and rituals associated with Shiva. It was a simple compilation of data which was not available anywhere else. People enjoyed that.

Then came my second book on Vishnu, the third on Devi, and later a book on Hanuman followed. They were a part of my introduction series. Initially my books were on data, subsequently they dealt with analysis, and today they’re about applications.

How do you view mythology?
Every human being has an assumption. Another word for assumption is myth. And that assumption manifests itself in stories, symbols and rituals. Some stories die with us, some extend for generations, because they are sustaining ideas that matter. If I don’t value the stories of my parents, I destroy them. It’s a common practice in the West that the older generation’s stories become invalid. But in India we have allowed every story to exist and survive. We don’t distinguish between history and mythology, or personal histories and imagined history. We allow stories to flourish.

That’s why we have so much diversity. Whereas if you go to Europe and America, there isn’t much diversity. So through the stories you recognise the thought process of a people; what their ancestors were thinking, and what they are thinking now.
You just mentioned that some societies destroy stories. The 20th century is replete with examples of authoritarian governments that have tried to wipe out culture and mythology of thousands of years…

You can’t destroy mythology. You just move on to other stories. When people talk about mythology, they have a particular assumption that mythology is a bad word and that they have jettisoned it. For all its technological advancement and officially sanctioned beliefs, Europe still behaves the way it did 2,000 years ago. There is a combination of an underlying assumption, overlaid by historical and personal realities. Every society/nation has an immediate reality, a historical reality and a mythic reality. The last is the least understood, but is a potent force that is shaping our stories even today.

Does economics dominate the type of mythology prevalent?
The rich man’s stories are readily accepted. But if you dig deeper, you will find that the poor man merely indulges them, for his own selfish reasons. If you have to get admission into a western university, or you are looking for funding from them, you have to pretend to align to their beliefs.

Your new book, ‘Pashu’, is for children. Which of your books sell better — your kids’ books or those on mythology?
Difficult to say, as they are all bestsellers. That’s also because nobody writes on the subject. My success comes from the view that I am not embarrassed by India, or religion. And I don’t care about being politically incorrect. My next book is on the Gita, and it will be my first philosophical work. There’s a market for it and I am going to attempt it.

In your view, what’s the difference between writer Amish Tripathi and you? Both write on mythology…
He writes on mythology as fiction. So he’s telling you a fictional story. He is not relating the Puranas… he is interested in his interpretation of the Puranas. He is presenting Shiva as a historical figure. He is not interested in decoding mythology.

Tell us about your book ‘Devi: The Mother-Goddess’. Does it explore the condition of women in India today?
No, it’s the mythology of the goddess. It’s about decoding the meaning of images and rituals associated with her. It’s an attempt to see what they are trying to communicate and not an attempt to impose the reality of society on that. The stories are co-related to the historical trends. The assumptions about the goddess in India are different from those in other parts of the world. The question is, do they have anything to do with women at all?

If the goddess is worshipped in India, why are women raped?
Societal behaviour and assumptions are not interlinked. Women are respected in America, but rapes still occur there. The fact is that it’s a patriarchal world. The mother of god has to be virgin… most prophets are men… god had a son and not a daughter, and a man was crucified and not a woman. Yes, there are women saints, but the moment a woman became a saint, she was de-sexed. The only way to get social sanction was to deny the fact that you were a woman.

What do you think is the reason for this?
I feel it is the discomfort with the body. We have valorised celibacy and rejected Nature. This view comes across in my goddess stories, which reveal unease with Nature. We have a monastic order that rejects anything which is natural. It doesn’t like diversity, it doesn’t like sexuality, it doesn’t like any form of sahajta, or spontaneity. Animals are spontaneous. They don’t know any other way. But we try and control them. Trees just grow. But we trim them. Nature too is unpredictable. It scares us. Spontaneity is fluid and unpredictable, so we don’t like it.

Posted by Hiten Vyas in Interviews 

Devdutt Pattanaik is a renowned author, speaker, illustrator and mythologist. He has authored over 30 books; many of them bestsellers, which articulate numerous Hindu mythologies in a way that the majority can understand. We interviewed Devdutt who also has a mythological approach to management and leadership, to find out about his work and his most recent book, which is for children and entitled Pashu.

Welcome to e-Books India, Devdutt! We are thrilled to have you join us for this interview. Many authors dream of writing full time, but at the start they usually have a day job, which might not be their true passion, but is required to pay the bills. You of course, are a trained doctor who left this profession to move onto writing full time. Please tell us a bit about your experiences with making this transition?

After medicine, I worked in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry, not as a clinical but more as a corporate guy – focused on communication, training, marketing and sales. Mythology was a hobby that I did on the side until it became so popular that I did not have to work anymore to pay my bills. Mythology became full time. A large point of this transition I owe to Mr. Kishore Biyani of Future Group who believed mythology had a great role to play in business and management, especially consumer insights and eventually employee insights.

In terms of writing, you write books about mythology. Please tell us a bit about how this interest in mythology came about and in particular what made you want to write books in this area?

As a child I was always interested in mythology. But it transformed from hobby to a writing passion when I realized the gap in the quality of books: some were basic, meant only for children and others were intense meant only for scholars. There was nothing to bridge the two. That is how my writing began, which was focused on helping people see the depth of mythology without being boringly academic.
Your most recent book is entitled Pashu and is a children’s book. Can you please tell us a bit about it?

Animals play a key role in Hindu mythology, more than any other mythology in the world. Yet, we know so little about them. This book is about sharing with everyone the vast world of animals found in the Puranas – the notion of how they are born of different mothers and share the same father as humans. Have you had any particular positive review or comment sent from a youngster, or parent who enjoyed Pashu? What did they have to say about it?

I think parents are enjoying it more than children for it allows them to learn what they did not when they were children. So they can become children again with their own children. A nice way to bond. It is not like animal fables of Jatakas and Panchatantra – there are no lessons or messages here, just an understanding of how the world was imagined by our ancestors.

How important do you think it is to teach young people about mythology?

Whether we teach them or not, every person will imagine the world differently. By sharing our mythology we influence that imagination. If parents wish to influence the imagination of their children with their own imagination and the imagination of their ancestors, they need to tell mythological stories.

Can you please share 3 top tips for writers who want to write nonfiction books about mythology?

1. Write, write, write.

2. Focus on understanding and sharing more than preaching.

3. Don’t try to justify or defend your favourite characters.

How can people find out more about you?

Visit Devdutt.com or follow me on Twitter:@devduttmyth or on Facebook: DevduttPattanaik.

Published on thegoodbookcorner.com

tgbc: You are a prolific writer, drawing upon the myths and legends of India. How do you decide what might appeal to children?

Devdutt: I feel children love stories simply told. So I tell them stories in a very simple way. Children tend to be fascinated by animals and art and monsters and so I focus on those a lot.

tgbc: At a 2000 conference organized by the National Book Trust, Radhika Menon asserted that there is nothing new in Indian literature, that it simply retells the classics over and over again.

a.What is the value of continuing to retell the classic stories? Who is the audience for these?…..
Devdutt : The assumption here is we ‘know everything’ that the ‘old’ stories have to tell…that is human arrogance at work…..I try hard not to be arrogant…and the ‘old’ stories reveal so much to me…..for the child ‘old’ stories are ‘new’…..it is rather presumptuous of a parent/publisher to think what is old for the parent/publisher will be old for their child, no? …. I guess people who are obsessed with the young only are embarrassed by the old.

b.In the years since you have been writing, have you seen any significant shifts? ….
Devdutt: I don’t see the point of ‘shifts’ …thats for a literary critic/historian or an academic……I feel looking for shifts is like seeking a new direction in the ferris wheel we call life. Its a great delusion that our lives are somehow different from that of our ancestors, that our heartbreak and hope are different, because we travel in cars and have cell phones, and we speak English. Sounds rather pompous to seek something ‘new’ without really knowing the ‘old’.

tgbc: How important is it for there to be options to see one’s own culture in literature? In other words, does it matter if an Indian student is reading books by English or American authors? Or vice versa?…..
Devdutt: Parents have the option of denying their children their heritage. Its a valid choice. Its fine if children are not interested in their culture. The regrets come later when parents and children discover they have no roots, like children who were never taught the mother tongue of their parents. Life moves on. Languages, cultures, stories die.

tgbc: What liberties do you think can be taken in such a genre?….
Devdutt: I don’t understand the question….Liberty?….Is there an authority out there stopping anyone?

tgbc: What formats in this genre, according to you, work better at engaging children?……
Devdutt: Children are not a homogenous entity. Every book has its reader.

tgbc: How do considerations of class (social, financial) and audience impact the content and form of children’s books in India? Has it impacted what you have written for children?…….
Devdutt: The poor cannot afford books. The rich can. That does not mean the rich actually read the book bought for them, or that the poor will read the book given to them free. Curiosity and interest in books have nothing to do with class. Rest is all about access and availability. To write keeping ‘class’ in mind is rather horrifyingly un-ethical, I feel. Are you suggesting authors should write differently for rich children and poor children? I find the thought deplorable.

tgbc: Do illustrators get the credit they deserve? How can we promote their work, vision and art fairly?
Devdutt: I don’t illustrate for credit. I don’t understand the need for it. You illustrate because it makes you happy. If a publisher likes your work, and finds it financially viable, he will publish it and pay for it. If the children love the illustrations, there will be greater market demand for it. That’s all there is to it. Why would anyone want more?

tgbc: What new content do you think needs to be developed to engage children with our rich cultural heritage?
Devdutt: There are vast number of stories that are yet waiting to be retold. But for many children, and their parents, India and its culture is uncool. We are no competition for Barbies and Disney and Pixar or various Toon characters on TV.

tgbc: What have you planned next in your writing?
Devdutt: That’s a secret.

tgbc: What are you reading currently?
Devdutt: Mani Rao’s Bhagavad Gita in poetry

Published on 14th September, 2015 on swarajyamag.com

Mythology poses a curious problem. Is it fiction or non-fiction?

If Bible or the Quran is classified as ‘Religion,’ and Homer’s Iliad as ‘Fiction’, where must Ramayana be located – with Bible and Quran or with Iliad? Did the Greeks see Iliad as fantasy or history? Is the story of the virgin birth of Jesus a scientific fact, or a metaphor? Should the flight of Muhammad on a flying horse from Mecca to Jerusalem be taken literally or allegorically?

Many of these questions have now become political debates. The divide between fiction and non-fiction is too simplistic and too inadequate to capture the many realities of literature.

The word ‘myth’ came from the Greek ‘mythos,’ which means ‘story’. It became a pejorative term during the Classical Age, around 2500 years ago, when there was a rupture between the truth revealed by mythos and the truth revealed by logos or reason.

The philosophers who sought ‘the truth’ distanced themselves from the poets who did not care much for reason or evidence. So the works of Homer and Hesiod were never given the status given to that of Plato and Aristotle.

During the European Renaissance, 500 years ago, this Greek prejudice resurfaced. With the Scientific Revolution, only the rational came to be seen as truth; the irrational was seen as false. The word mythology started being used in European Universities to classify sacred narratives encountered in colonies of America, Africa and Asia.

It was noticed that natives used these stories to make sense of their world. But they were very distinct from the biblical account of the world considered as truth not only by the Christians but also their sworn enemies, the Muslims and the Jews.

The colonial narratives were clubbed in the same box as the pre-Christian narratives of the Greeks and the Vikings. It was used to justify the White Man’s Burden: the noble savages needed civilizing.

In the last hundred years, these mythologies have been analyzed variously. Some anthropologists began viewing these traditional sacred narratives as proto-history, or even proto-science. Others saw it as philosophical allegory or embodiment of natural phenomena.

Psychoanalysts like Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung saw myths as public expressions of private dreams and voices of the ‘collective’ unconscious. Claude Levi Strauss revealed how tribal symbols and rituals referred to structures by which the world could be made understandable.

Works on comparative mythology like the works of James Frazer, Robert Graves, Joseph Campbell, and Mircea Eliade drew attention to the common structures underlying stories, symbols and rituals of communities separated by space and time.

Foucault, Derrida, Chomsky spoke of the nature of language and structures of the mind and debated whether they were natural occurrences or cultural constructions.

Initially, the Bible was seen as historical, rational and scientifically true. Newton, the father of modern physics, for example, never questioned its irrationality.

But with the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species that spoke of evolution, the gloves were off. The scientific world insisted that the religious world was a mythic world. God, it was argued was a concept, not a measurable entity, hence not fact.

To be truly scientific and liberal, one was expected to be atheistic. The West saw itself as making the journey out of mythology (many gods) through religion (one God) towards rationality (atheism). The religious folks, however, disagreed, and deemed rationality and atheism, like mythology, to be false religions.

The battle is still on, especially in America where the conservative religious lobby is extremely popular. In Arab countries, the existence of this division is not even acknowledged. The only truth allowed is religious truth.

In post-independent India, so much value was given to science and mathematics and secularism that no one bothered much about the Puranas and the Ramayana or the Mahabharata.

Universities in India have not had debates as to which department should teach Ramayana and Mahabharata: language, culture, religion, philosophy, history anthropology, gender studies?

The Left decided to equate it with falsehood, but the Right resisted, insisting that everything said in scriptures from flying airplanes to missiles to plastic surgery was scientifically measurable and verifiable truth.

Both valued the literal over the metaphorical. Both confused fact (a scientific concept) with truth (a religious concept). Neither made room for subjectivity.

The confusion and apathy have had terrible consequences. Few people in India today, other than scholars, realize that Ramayana and Mahabharata are not singular Sanskrit texts, but vast traditions of stories, symbols and rituals, with complex regional histories.

Few appreciate how words like ‘evil’ and ‘perfection’ cannot be translated in Indian languages due to paradigm differences. ‘Avatar’, for example, has nothing to do with ‘hero’ a Greek concept or ‘prophet’ a biblical concept.

We have become so conditioned to see the truth in qualitative terms that we are unable to appreciate the quantitative approach to truth. Multiple incomplete truths (mithya) can co-exist, as they make their way towards a complete truth (satya).

This quantitative approach is what accounts for much of India’s tolerance and diversity.

Much of the discomfort with mythology boils down to its definition.

To me, mythology is the study of a subjective truth of people that is communicated through stories, symbols and rituals. Unlike fantasy that is nobody’s truth, and history that seeks to be everybody’s truth, mythology is somebody’s truth.

What is true for the insider is false for the outsider, creating a myriad of ‘my truths’ and ‘your truths’.

And these cultural truths deal with complex psychological issues such as identity, value and purpose, ideas that defy measurement, hence science. When threatened, they evoke rage.

In fact, a unique feature of human civilization, now being increasingly realized by evolutionary biologists and historians, is the role played by imaginative fiction to promote widespread collaboration. This point was explained most elegantly in the book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari.

This definition of mythology is broad enough to include religious as well as non-religious beliefs. It is respectful of all truths, those of a tribe as well as those of a nation-state or a political party. It can accommodate religious beliefs such as God, heaven, hell and karma.

It can also accommodate secular beliefs like ‘human rights’ and ‘justice’ and ‘equality’, which are not natural phenomena but artificial constructions, human assumptions, dreams. In fact, the greatest myth of humanity is the notion of property, the idea of ‘mine’ which Indian philosophy refers to as maya, a delusion, that is necessary for society to function.

This definition allows for discussions (sam-vaad) rather than arguments (vi-vaad) as multiple truths are acknowledged and accommodated. No single idea dominates.

Why not choose another word other than mythology? That would mean accepting a colonial out-dated definition as ‘truth’. A submission to colonial consciousness that has gripped many cult leaders, in the Left and the Right.

We need to remind ourselves that language is not a static entity. Words are changing all the time, with the change in context.

The word ‘gay’ means something very different from what it did a hundred years ago. The word ‘computer’ did not even exist a hundred years ago and had to be coined later. Our understanding of myth and mythology today is radically different from what it was a century ago.

We live in the postmodern era, where we recognize the value of subjectivity in cultural studies, how the prejudice of scholars shapes meanings and interpretations and definitions.

Imagination is no longer a bad word; science acknowledges the key role it plays in human psychology, and establishing the human culture.

We have the power to redefine words, for global consumption. The era of seeking validation from European and American authorities is gone. As Panini, the Sanskrit grammarian said over 2500 years ago, ‘For pots you go to potters. For language, you need not go to the linguist but to the market.’

In the market, there was once an old out-dated prejudiced colonial definition of mythology. We don’t have to cling to it. We can replace it with a new definition, one that is more comprehensive, acknowledging the subjective truth of humanity that is indifferent to rationality. Hence, mythology and mythologist.

Published on 19th November, 2015, on openroadreview.com

The new edition of the much anticipated literary festival in the country has just been announced. The Bangalore Literature Festival will be held at the Royal Orchid hotel (Near KGA) on 5-6 Dec 2015.

The two-day festival will feature writers from India and abroad. Kulpreet Yadav interviewed one of the bestselling Indian writers, Devdutt Pattanaik, who is scheduled to speak at the festival. Devdutt, a trained doctor, writes on Indian mythology and symbology, illustrates his own work for his books, and is one of the most sought after speakers in India.

Kulpreet Yadav: Where do you place contemporary India in our increasingly shrinking world where cultural identities are mutating by the day & scientific advancement the only litmus to measure success?

Devdutt Pattanaik: I think India can offer a new way of thinking to the world, provided we rein in one thing: an obsessive desire to mimic the West. We are mimicking the West in both the Left and the Right and are forgetting India offers a unique worldview that enables the world to include diversity and dynamism. We are so obsessed with measurement and objectivity that we have stopped valuing the subjective, the inter-personal, and the cultural and are embarrassed by femininity.

KY: By agreeing to your idea of India and its being at peace with itself, some argue we might lose an edge in a globalised world. Is it a better idea to find strength from our myths, legends and symbols? Or we should be open to accept other cultures, values and belief systems even if they are not aligned with our way of thinking.

DP: What is the point of life? Is it to dominate others, or to find happiness? We have to ask this question. The globalized world has decided that ‘having’ more creates happiness. They simply created power hierarchies where the powerful are those who deprive others of property. The globalized world is one that is increasingly becoming technocratic. We find more pleasure and security in WhatsApp. We avoid conversations and connections. Even on a date, there is a tendency to connect via an App. Is that a world that we find aspirational? Whether we accept other cultures or not, we will always be influenced by them. The point is to include them, rather than let them overwhelm us as we are ashamed or unaware of our own belief systems. We need to contribute to the globalized world, not just be passive recipients. For that we have to actively engage with who we are and not simply engage with Western versions of who we are.

KY: The western idea of happiness through alcohol and other forms of debauchery is rising in India. Bars are mushrooming, the western movies and television shows are a rage among the young, and pairing food and wine the very idea of a great evening etc. How do we make spirituality and mythological relevant to our future generation. Make our myths and legends cool, more fun maybe? You have written a lot of books for children. That is certainly one of the ways forward. What more?

DP: Where did you get that thought from? Varuni, goddess of wine, was churned out of the ocean of milk, according to the Puranas. Bhairava, a form of Shiva, is offered wine. Offering wine is part of many tribal and folk traditions. We have assumed that ‘Monastic Hinduism’ that rose from 10th century AD/CE, is ‘real’ Hinduism; hence we shun all form of pleasure. We deny the truth of our scriptures and present it in a puritanical way because of this monastic obsession. We also try to see Hinduism through a Western lens and so try to shape our children’s story to ‘protect’ them from reality, which is hardly good parenting.

KY: You are one of most read and highly rated Indian writers. What are the three things in your writing you can attribute this success to?

PS: Honesty, clarity and simplicity.

KY: Out of the 31 books that you have written, only one is fiction. Why do you rely more on nonfiction than fiction to covey your stories? Doesn’t writing fiction give you more bandwidth to play around, to excite and entertain the readers by dovetailing your own imagination?

PS: I am interested in mythology and all books present various aspects of mythology to different audience. Even the fiction story is part of this process. Mythology expands your horizons and creates a wider framework of writing fiction. Our own imagination is rather limited. Most fictions simply endorse this limited reality. Mythology helps us appreciate the wider world of our ancestors.

KY: What are the three things that strike you the most about Bangalore as a writer, both good and bad?

PS: I like the food, the weather and the people of Bangalore. I hate the traffic, the roads and the increasing Americanisation.

Published on 12th March, 2016, on Mythical India

With over 30 books to his name and numerous article on platforms like The Economic Times, Mid-day, Speaking tree etc., Devdutt Pattanaik is prolific author, mythologist and a leadership consultant in India. Educated in medicine and having worked with majors like Apollo Health Street, Sanofi Aventis and E&Y, he was always interested in reading and writing about Mythological stories. His focus area has been to draw rich insights on business, leadership and management from the mythology. He has also featured in shows like “Business Sutra” on CNBC and hosted “Devlok” on Epic channel. Devdutt was also the Chief Belief Officer of Future Group and consults Reliance Group and Star TV on matters related to culture and mythological serials respectively. We had this wonderful opportunity to interact with this well sought after public speaker, author, columnist and mythologist on various issues like Indian Mythology, religious views and hardliners along with his show and the upcoming book. Below is an account of Mythical India’s interaction with Dr Devdutt Pattanaik.

1) What has been the inspiration for starting to write about Mythology, culture and religions? Being an MBBS and working in pharma industry for 14 years, what lead to your deep interest in researching about Indian Mythology and then start writing full time?
Hobbies are hobbies. It has nothing to do with education. I was always interested in mythology as a child though I got more deeply interested in college. I wrote my first column related to mythology in college magazines, and then, following interest of a publisher, my first (Shiva an introduction) book on mythology in 1996, that is over 20 years ago. Mythology remained a parallel track to my job in pharma industry until 2008 when I took it up full time thanks to the support of Mr. Kishore Biyani who felt I would add value to the think tank of Future Group (Big Bazaar).

2) You have been very radical about your views on how various religions treat women in their mythological stories or how various religions enforce the caste system on their disciples. You have also challenged the status quo of beliefs for the religions. What is your motivation behind such topics?
I don’t think I have been radical. I just refuse to accept information based on bias and without checking all the data. Most people approach mythology in general and Hindu mythology in particular with a bias that distorts all understanding of scriptures. I just challenge the bias and introduce new ways of looking at data. For example, many who read Ramayana assume that Sita is victim. Yet, when we approach Ramayana by seeing Sita as Goddess, we discover she makes 5 choices in the epic, and Ram none. Who is more empowered? In caste matters, nobody asks why Pakistan and Bangladesh which is Islamic still follows caste system in matters related to sewage. This is as per Dalit sources. So clearly caste needs to be seen from a South Asian lens, not a Hindu lens. But we don’t. The problem is with presumptions, not data.

3) Have you faced any challenges from the extremists groups based on the topics you have written about? 
Left extremists or Right extremists? Wherefrom comes this urge to constantly seek validation of extremists who listen to no one, and are usually narcissistic and psychopathic? To seek their validation is giving them power, no?

4) What is your take on how hard liners from various religions have twisted and tweaked the religious teachings to misguide people?
They exist. They have a right to express themselves. I have a right to filter them out. Nobody in the world is misguided. We should not assume that humans cannot think for themselves. The assumption that people can be manipulated indicates our own lack of faith in humanity or our own high opinion of ourselves as ‘saviors’. People have the choice to choose their path. We judge them as being guided or misguided based on our prejudices.

5) What is your long term objective with your writing? What kind of change would you want to bring in the current ideology of the society, if any?
I have no desire to change the world. The world makes up its own mind. I do what I love doing. I have been doing this 20 years long before mythology became ‘cool’.

6) You have also partnered with EPIC channel to present Devlok. How has been the experience? Please share some of it with our readers.
It has been great fun, speaking in Hindi and explaining concepts that I usually write in English. You realize how translation can distort ideas, and from viewer feedback I have learned how happy people are to learn about our great culture.

7) You have been a busy writer. You have published more than 40 books. Can you tell us about your latest book and what it’s about?
I never talk about future books. I love writing as it helps me clear my thoughts. The more I write, the clearer my mind becomes. It is my meditation.

By Ankita Siddiqui

Published on 4th April, 2016, on theculturetrip.com

Tête-à-Tête with Devdutt Pattanaik

What separates myth from reality?

Belief. An event is considered real by the believer and a myth by the non-believer. Was Christ resurrected after 3 days? Christians will say he did. Non-Christians will disagree. Was Muhammad a prophet? Muslims will say yes. Non-Muslims will disagree. Is Ganesha real? Hindus will say yes. Non-Hindus will call Ganesha a myth.

The concept of temple worship vs the teachings of Vedas — how different or similar they are?

Both speak of invoking the deity, feeding the deity, asking the deity for favours, and then bidding farewell to the deity. It’s done without image in Vedic ritual of yagna, and with an image in a temple.

Religious leaders dominate the masses into believing doctrines as they interpret it. What if each individual studied them and sought awareness from their point of view? Would such encouragement undermine the religious leaders’ power game?

Some people interpret on their own. Others seek others to interpret it. Some impose their interpretations on others. Some do not allow others to interpret. All kinds of people exist. What is inescapable is interpretation. There is nothing outside interpretation.

What separates religion from spirituality, or are they the sides of the same coin?

Religion is social. Spirituality is personal. Religion is based on rules. Spirituality on choice.

Is it possible to integrate teachings of mythology into business life? Is having a Chief Belief Officer in every organisation still a distant dream?

Business is currently based on Western mythology that life needs to have a goal, customers need to be ‘converted,’ that rules need to be ‘followed’ if you seek a ‘bonus’ like God of Abraham rewarding the faithful, and profit is indicative of success and goodness. I am just drawing attention to alternative models of business from other mythologies.

What lessons can mythology teach politics to create a shift from power play to good for the common man?

Ideas like ‘good’ and ‘common man’ are myths. What is good for one group may be bad for another. Say the common man wants to eat meat — this will be seen as wrong and bad by vegetarians and animal rights activists. Who decides who is common and who is not? The Prime Minister Narendra Modi was once a tea-seller. Should we say he is not a common man anymore? Society always will have power and wealth gradients. All we can do is try to ensure everyone has food and essential wherewithals of survival.

Abrahamic ideology versus Hindu mythology. What are the key differences for us to understand, and do they overlap?

Observe how you use mythology for Hinduism and ideology for Abrahamic Faiths. Is that an opinion, a fact, or a response based on fear in a world where fundamentalists are out to kill intellectuals who do not agree with their view? All faiths are subjective truths, hence myths. The idea of Original Sin is absurd from a Hindu point of view, just as the idea of karma is absurd from an Abrahamic point of view.

Celibacy and continence are considered the path for spiritual enlightenment. True or false?

True for the believer. False for the non-believer. Why should one assumption suit everyone?

Can Samsara and Nirvana co-exist?

A good debater can prove anything. The rest is a matter of faith. Samsara is the world of human relationships. Nirvana is a world where I give up my identity. Can I have relationships without my own identity? Some would call such a way of thinking exploitative and abusive.

India is the land of the first sexual treatise, the ‘Kamasutra,’ and the erotic art of ‘Khajuraho Temples’ celebrate sexual energy as divine. However, modern India is a paradox, as sex education is still a taboo. What is your view on this?

Only 10% of all the images in Khajuraho are sexual. Its walls depict every aspect of life. Society moves between two extremes: puritanism and vulgar debauchery. Life is somewhere in between, a mix of desire and restraint, with respect for public and privates spaces.

Queerness has been shunned but has existed for ages behind closed curtains. Today, homosexuality is being accepted, but still, preference is given to gender over soul. Can mythology teach us to deal with queerness with empathy?

Queerness has been part of Hindu tradition rather openly. Here is a quote from Tulsidas Ram Charit Manas 7.87 ‘Man, woman, queer (napunsaka), plant and animal can find God if they give up malice.’ The colonizers were embarrassed by it. We continue to carry the colonial burden. In life, we have to balance needs of flesh (gender, sexuality, desire) with needs of soul (relationship, empathy, love, responsibility).

When did woman lose the status of a Goddess? How can divine feminine make a return in today’s patriarchal society and overcome misogyny?

That’s an assumption based on the popular ‘victim’ discourse that currently the favorite in academic circles today. Society is what it is – with multiple power structures based on gender, economics, sexuality and politics that are constantly shifting either voluntarily or involuntarily. The Western template observes at everything from the lens of oppressor and oppressed so that the observer can qualify himself/herself as savior. In this template, informed by Abrahamic mythology, the world was once perfect (Eden) and now we are trying to get back there.

Heaven and Hell are in this lifetime or afterlife. What is your take on this, and how is Karmic theory interlink?

In one-life cultures, there is one Heaven and one Hell, and no journey thereafter. In karma theory, there are multiple heavens and hells, and stay everywhere is temporary.

What is your message for the world through your writings?

There is no message. Just assumptions to give meaning to our life.

You have juggled various roles with perfection and are an inspiration. How would you describe your journey from medicine to an advisory role in the corporate world to a mythologist/illustrator and speaker?

Organic. Not based on some strategy, but simply responding to opportunities with sincerity and hard work and being delighted with the outcome.

Interviewed by Pooja Singh, for www.livemint.com, on 29th May, 2016.30

We tend to tiptoe around the role of power in management, and fail to openly acknowledge how the animal desire to dominate often destroys the best of organizations. But power is a critical tool that affects the implementation of any idea.

These lines are from author-mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik’s new book, An Indian Approach To Power—The Leadership Sutra, which takes you through Indian mythology and its parallels with corporate life while offering “made in India” sutras (concepts) related to the human quest for significance and the importance of rules. It follows the thread of his earlier book, Business Sutra.

In an email interview, Mumbai-based Pattanaik explains how rules in business spaces are based on ideas similar to those found in mythology, and the lessons that can be drawn from them. Edited excerpts:

Ram’s obsession with rules dehumanized him; it deeply affected Sita’s life. Should there be a limit to following rules in the workplace?

It depends on what price we are willing to pay. That Ram always follows the rule makes him dependable. You know what to expect from him. That’s a good quality too. It also means that around him, there will be Sitas who will suffer. Every benefit has a cost—an idea that is poorly understood by many leaders today who assume “good actions” only have “good reactions”.

The Pandav Bhim and Ravan lived by their own rules, something which today’s millennials do too.

Advantage, you live by your rule and can lead your pack of domesticated submissive followers. Disadvantage, no one sees you as dependable or reliable. And you will have problems trying to delegate—a problem in many family-owned corporations, where the founder cannot let go of his powers, even to his own children.

Recognition has always been seen as a big motivator among employees, managers, even chief executives. Is there any downside to it?

I think we need to understand what recognition means. It means an invisible employee is made “visible”. This matters a lot to humans. There is the rush of power (called Durga). However, it can become an addiction and can lead to depression when one realizes that what people look at is your achievement, not you. You are just as good as your results—a sad reality of the business world today.

One of the premises in the book is that marketing and business are all about ‘maya’ (delusion). In interviews and markets, candidates and products, respectively, are measured through scales. Could there be any other approach to distinguish between what’s good and what’s average?

Maya is a world seen through measurement and comparison. It is a delusion that we cannot escape. It’s water to the value-seeking fish. Hence, the world is maya. We play this game of measurement: Thus you are better or worse than your colleague based on how the management measures you and rewards you. You can measure your worth based on the salary and perks you receive. I don’t say it’s a bad thing. Wisdom is realizing the power of measurement/comparison in our lives and the lives of people around us. And knowing that we can even live in a world where we don’t have to measure and compare, at least privately.

You’ve mentioned that the corporate world is teeming with pretenders and mimics. They think they know how to walk the walk and talk the talk…but are nowhere close to knowing what true leadership actually means. Could you provide an example to explain why there’s a disconnect?

Take the case of why MBA (masters’ in business administration) students wear suits when they come for interviews, even on hot summer days. They are following a code, a uniform. They are mimicking as they are expected to mimic. Yet we ask them to think out of the box, be innovative and subversive. Investment bankers clone each other’s mannerisms as they want to fit in. So do computer nerds.

Leadership is about paying attention to the other, and enabling people not to mimic or pretend, but to be genuine/authentic about their fears. This means creating an ecosystem where people can be vulnerable and thus feel secure and empowered, for example, to express uncomfortable views without fear of censure. Mimicry and pretension means we are hiding. We are not being true. If a leader cannot sense fear in people around him, if a leader feels good when people around him are frightened into pretending, there is a problem. Power flows towards the leader or, rather, boss rather than towards the organization.

In one of the sections of the book, you say innovation is not possible unless rules are broken. Please explain.

Innovation is about rendering the old ways inefficient and ineffective. It is essentially about breaking the way things are. Some imagined a world where phones did not have wires. Someone imagined a world where you did not have to come to office to work. That was achieved through trial and error, often not within corporations, which seek alignment and compliance, but outside corporations, in garage start-ups. Someone essentially “broke” the rule. The hero. Or Vasudeva, of the Jain tradition.

Often, leaders ask employees to leave an organization because they have broken a rule. What’s the ideal way to deal with such a case?

This is classic Abrahamic mythology: The assumption that rule-breaking makes one wrong and evil. It does not take context into consideration. It sees latitude as amoral. It sees allowing as indulgence. Management is then an angry God of Moses, who punishes Moses for taking God’s name in vain, thus breaking the commandment. We have assumed that this is the right way. We are so deeply entrenched in this belief that an alternative sounds like fantasy.

People make mistakes. In fact, only through mistakes do we learn. Mistakes allow us to discover new things. Mistakes help us grow. But for corporations, mistakes are expensive. In a competitive, jungle-based ecosystem, that is not permitted. In fact, forgiveness is seen as weakness, and a sign of favouritism. One reason why we don’t have a leadership pipeline. We are expected to be right all the time, compliant all the time, like domesticated animals who are one day expected to lead a pack of wolves.

Published on 4th July, 2016, in Hindustan Times
An interview by Namya Sinha.

Celebrated mythologist and author Devdutt Pattanaik is an authority on all things mythology. He wrote his first book on Shiva, 20 years ago and since then has been “joining the dots” on mythology.

In fact, he believes that “no society can exist without myth as it creates notions of right and wrong, good and bad, heaven and hell, rights and duties”.

As his latest book Devlok with Devdutt, based on the TV series he hosts, gears up for release, he makes some more thought provoking points. For instance, why don’t we have stories of men who like apsaras dance to seduce women?

Excerpts from his interview:

How important has mythology been in shaping our society? How relevant is mythology in today’s day and age?

Mythology is the subjective truth of people communicated through stories, symbols and rituals. Every culture has its own mythology. For example, the western society is a combination of polytheistic Greek mythology and monotheistic Abrahamic mythology. Indian society is shaped by rebirth mythologies that accommodate diversity, which is why there is so much cultural diversity in India. Compare this with ‘developed’ America and Europe that is terrified of Muslim immigrants. And Middle Eastern countries where non-Islamic religions are either not welcomed or held in suspicion.

Indian society is entrenched with patriarchy. However there was a time when women sages were as important as male sages. When did this shift happen with a patriarchal system coming in place?

All societies are patriarchal, not just the Indian society. Let us clarify that. Biblical and Islamic traditions continue to see God as a man, not a woman, despite feminism. Sages were expected to be celibate, which means the rejection of female sexuality. I find nothing empowering about it. It is hardly aspirational. Why don’t we have stories of men who like Apsaras dance to seduce women? Now, that would show a shift, no? In fact, patriarchy in India glorifies male celibacy and rejects female sexuality. It continues today and continues to be endorsed.

Can a society work without mythological stories?

No society can exist without myth. Humans cannot function without myths because myth creates notions of right and wrong, good and bad, heaven and hell, rights and duties. Marriages, monogamy, peace, salvation non-violence, are all concepts based on myth; they don’t exist in nature. All religions, all nations, all tribes, all ideologies, all ways of life, are based on myth. Human right is based on the myth of equality. Only a world without humans is a world without myths.

Are science and mythology connected?

No. Science seeks to understand society using a measurement, rather than faith. Mythology is about reality based on faith. Science is about the material world. Humanities, including psychology, use the scientific method to understand society, but they are not comparable with material sciences, where measurability, verifiability and reproducibility play an important role. Mythology establishes world views that determine our politics and economics.

Your TV series, Devlok with Devdutt will be now out as a book. How will this book make mythology interesting and relevant to a reader?

The book is an English translation of the Hindi conversations on the show, hence serves as a reference book for those who enjoyed the series and want to share it with their friends and family.

An interview by Kaushani Banerjee
Published on 18th July, 2016, in Hindustan Times

You are known as somebody who simplifies religious texts. But religion is a sensitive topic in India. How do you manage to simplify things and still toe the line?

Religion is not a sensitive topic. Some people, a small proportion, are either ill-informed or oversensitive, or lack a sense of humour to let others develop an alternate point of view. So, you try and ensure these people are not mocked. In most cases, it works. But occasionally, you come across a sociopath. Nothing can be done then.

How would you describe your journey — from studying medicine to taking up an advisory role in the corporate world, to becoming a mythologist, illustrator and speaker?

Initially, I had two parallel tracks — one in the pharma and healthcare industry, which was the corporate world, and it paid my bills, and one was in mythology, which was my passion. Later, in 2008, the two tracks became one. Currently, I am writing, lecturing and consulting on mythology full-time. My education in science enabled me to think logically and systematically, and to differentiate between science and faith. My corporate experience enabled me to map mythology for management [lessons]. It’s a journey of 20 years.

For your latest book, were there any aspects of the Ramayana that you had to reinterpret to make them relevant in the modern context?

Not really. I just reframed the original story. I focused on the idea of making choices, and I found that Sita makes five choices. These are all Valmiki’s ideas. I have just made them explicit and used a modern idiom. In fact, the book aligns itself with the Hindu belief in karma and with the ideas of dharma, niti and nyaya. So, this is not a reinterpretation, or a retelling. It is simply a reframing; a shift in the spotlight to see what we all know, but never paid attention to. I found this way of telling the story far more empowering. As I say in the book, Valmiki was wondering if he should call his book Ramayana or Pulatsya vadham (killing of Ravana) or Sita Charitam (the biography of Sita). Why would he do that if he did not consider Sita a key character?

What is the significance of the other female characters in the Ramayana?

In the epic, the choices of women are presented as the causes of problems that men then have to deal with. We find this in the story of Ahalya, Kaikeyi, Surpanakha and, finally, Sita. We also find women suffering and solving problems, emerging from the choices that men make, such as the story of Dasharatha, Lakshmana, Sugriva and Ravana. Thus, we discover men and women playing the same role — of making choices and facing the consequences; some with dignity, others without dignity.

A lot of people feel Sita was a passive victim of patriarchy. What is your opinion on this?

That’s a convenient understanding that props up an argument. We live in a world where the Left fetishes victimhood, and the Right transforms women into ‘venerable totems’. So, in one view, Sita is a ‘victim of patriarchy’, and in another view, she is a ‘mother’ and a ‘goddess’. I prefer to see her as a girl who made a choice.

You’ve previously retold the Mahabharata. If the central idea of the epic was karma, what key idea does the Ramayana revolve around?

Karma. It’s the same idea in two different contexts. In the Ramayana, the hero is the eldest son of a royal family. In the other, the heroes are born of ‘niyoga’, which means they are not born out of a marital relationship. In each case, the story is about a property dispute, and claims over Ayodhya and Hastinapur in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, respectively. Heroes in each case take decisions that evoke conversations around ethics, morality and righteousness in a world that is indifferent to human concepts of fairness and equality.

Which one has been harder to retell — the Mahabharata or the Ramayana?

The Ramayana is the most difficult one to tell as audiences have made up their minds — with little research — and are convinced that they know the layers of the narrative.

Some people believe Lord Hanuman is still alive. What are your views on this?

Some people believe the son of God died for humanity. Some people believe God sends us messengers. Some people believe Hanuman is alive. And some people believe that there is justice in the world. Everyone is entitled to their own truths.

Indian authors are churning out a large number of books inspired by these texts. What makes Indian mythology dominate contemporary fiction In India?

I think most of these books are the author’s take on what has happened in India in the past. They connect people to their heritage and roots, which is a good thing.

With several mythological tales getting modern makeovers, are classical stories getting diluted?

If you look carefully, despite the many makeovers, the stories are still about heroes, villains, victims, damsels in distress, upright knights in shining armours, and unredeemable demons. So, essentially, it’s the same story. I wonder if the stories are expanding though. Here lies the opportunity that is often missed.

Published on 19th July, 2016, on www.scroll.in

Why is anna, food, accorded so much importance in our culture?
In Yoga-shastra, our body is called annakosha, that is, flesh formed from anna. Our flesh then becomes food for other animals.

All living beings need anna for their annakosha. Plants eat the elements, especially the five major ones, the pancha mahabhut, including sunlight and water. Plants, in turn, are consumed by animals, which are then eaten by other animals.

Humans eat both plants and animals. Food and the action of eating maintain life; life eats life.

The Upanishads give a lot of importance to food. Without food, the world cannot exist. We can discuss atma, meaning, talk of high intellectual and spiritual matters, but at the most practical level, “anna hi satya hai” – food is truth.

It is emphasised in the texts to remind us about the meaning of existence. Anna is called Brahmin, the way bhasha is called Brahmin. God resides in food; the one who eats is god, what you are eating is also god. The concept that “god is life and life is food’ is repeated constantly in mantras and other texts so that we don’t forget the importance of food.

The bhog offered to the gods is mostly milk and fruit. Are these their favourite foods or is there some other reason behind it?
You can take this literally or metaphorically. The earth is known as Vasundhara, that which holds up vasu, or plants. So if the earth is a cow, plants are its milk. In the Vedas, milk is given a lot of importance. Ghee, a milk product, is offered during yagnas to Agni, said to be the hunger of the gods.

Panchamruta contains five milk products – milk, both raw and boiled, ghee, butter and yoghurt. Go-ras, cow urine, honey and jaggery are all mixed in and offered to the gods. In the Puranas, it is said that Vishnu lies on Kshir Sagar, an ocean of milk.

So, nature, prakriti, is visualised as an ocean of milk. Whatever you get from nature is like milk – that’s the analogy. Which is why gods are always offered milk.

Fruit may be raw or ripe. All fruits have different tastes, and are offered to the gods depending on the type of fruit. Devis are given sour and spicy fruits. Lakshmi is offered amlas, the Indian gooseberry, lemon and chillies. Vishnu is given sweet fruits. Shiva is given dry fruits perhaps because they’re found in cooler climes, or because rishis carried them when they journeyed.

What are the favourite foods of Shiva and Vishnu?
One way of looking at it is that Shiva is a vairagi, a tapasvi who wishes to stay away from domestic life, while Vishnu, in the form of Rama or Krishna, lives a householder’s life. So Shiva is offered raw unprocessed milk and Vishnu, processed milk products like butter and ghee.

Shiva is content with whatever is available. But because Vishnu is a householder, his offerings require effort; he needs manufactured products. To extract the butter from the milk, you have to put in a lot of work, or you will not see results. A lot of value is accorded to shram, labour. So, typically, Vishnu is offered cooked food.

During the Annakuta festival around Diwali, Krishna is offered a mountain of food, the chhappan bhog, or fifty-six items – because food is extremely important for a householder. The food offered matches the lifestyle of the god.

Do only gods like bhog; do goddesses not like it?
For devis, traditionally, there would be blood sacrifices – goats, buffaloes, birds. These days it is not popular because of animal rights. A devi is Raktavilasini, one who loves rakt, blood.

We can take it literally, but there is a metaphorical aspect to it. Bhudevi, the earth goddess, is considered to be a cow whose milk sustains everyone. But how will she sustain herself? In the form of Gauri, she gives milk, and in the form of Kali, she drinks blood – the cycle of life, as it were. This is to emphasise the idea that whenever you eat, you’ve killed something, sacrificed someone, offered bali.

Plant food comes from farms which were created after decimating forests, destroying mountains and rivers, killing countless creatures in the process. The Devi always reminds you that to build your civilisation, sanskriti, you destroy prakriti, nature. And so she demands blood, even narabali, human sacrifice.

In the Bhagavata Purana, Bhudevi tells Vishnu that people are troubling her and she wants to drink their blood. In fact, the secret reason behind the wars in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata is that Bhudevi is thirsty. There has been too much adharma, immorality, and man has exploited her terribly, and now she wants blood in return. So, in the form of Rama and Krishna, Vishnu makes the wars happen. These are a kind of narabali.

There is a story in the Mahabharata in which Arjuna and Bhima are quarrelling about who showed greater prowess during the war. They are told that there is a head atop a mountain who can give them the answer since he observed the entire war from up there. Some say the head’s name was Barbarika, others say it is Arvan. The head said, “I don’t know any Kaurava, Pandava, or great warrior. I only saw Bhudevi, in the form of Kali, drinking the blood of all the warriors as Vishnu’s Sudarshan chakra decimated them.”

Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, has a sister, Alakshmi, the goddess of feuds – both may enter a house together. In Mumbai, there’s a common custom of hanging a lemon and seven chillies above the threshold as an offering to Alakshmi, so that she can partake of it and remain outside the house. Inside the house, sweet bhog is offered to invite Lakshmi in.

Is there any specific story regarding bhog in the Ramayana or the Mahabharata?
In Ayodhya, there’s a place known as Sita’s kitchen. Sita was a very good cook. And Draupadi was famous for her generosity. Nobody went hungry from her kitchen. During their stay in the forest, after being exiled from the palace, the Pandavas don’t have anything. Draupadi feels bad that she won’t be able to feed whoever comes to her door.

To tease her, Duryodhana sends Durvasa and some other rishis to her. They ask her for food. She requests them to go and bathe in the river, while she prepares a meal for them. Once they depart, she goes inside and starts weeping in despair.

It is then that Krishna arrives. He says there must be something that she can offer the rishis. Dismayed, Draupadi shows him the empty vessels, saying that she’d fed her husbands and then eaten whatever little remained. Krishna picks up one leftover grain of rice and eats it. He is satiated and because of that, so are the rishis.

They, in turn, feel they will end up disrespecting Draupadi if they don’t eat anything she offers, so they make a hasty exit. This is how Krishna protects Draupadi’s dignity.

However, Krishna tells Draupadi to pray to Surya, the sun god, for a solution to her problem. Draupadi does so and Surya gives her a thali, plate. There’s a phrase “Draupadi ki thali”, which is similar to the concept of “mataji ka bhandar”, implying that there will always be food in the kitchen. Each day, Draupadi’s thali stayed full until she ate. She would feed hundreds of people and be the last to eat. But once she had eaten, there would be no more food till the next day.

In these stories, there are no male cooks. How is that possible?
There are such references in the Mahabharata. Nala is a powerful, handsome and rich king, married to beautiful Damayanti, and their life goes well. Later, due to unfortunate circumstances, they become so poor that Nala has to become a servant to another king, and cook for him.

This story is more famous in Kerala. According to the Malayalam Mahabharata, the world’s greatest cook is Nala. Even now, when you find a good male cook, he’s compared to Nala.

I’ve heard that people offer betel leaf, paan, to the gods. Why?
Offering paan and supari, betel nut, is an Indian tradition. At the end of a meal, you eat paan–supari, which indicates all is well with your life, and that you are prosperous and content. It is a sign of a happy grihastha jeevan, household life. This is offered only to married gods, never to Shiva.

In some images, Lakshmi offers paan to Vishnu. It’s a sign of ayyashi, merrymaking, and of luxury, success and happiness. And we want all these in our lives.

What is shriphal?
Shri is Lakshmi, phal is fruit. It’s a fruit that you get round the year and one which is easily available. These are fruit which generate on their own, and don’t require too much effort, like coconuts or bananas. These are always kept in the thali for puja. Not only are these nutritious, but they are also a symbol of endless wealth and affluence.

Sometimes rice is also called shriphal. Under a kalash, pot, for a puja, you spread rice, and a coconut is placed on the mouth of the kalash. These are signs of Lakshmi. They are found in abundance, and there will be prosperity wherever they are.

Published on www.theindusparent.com

Talk of mythology and there is only one author that comes to our mind—Devdutt Pattanaik, the man who introduced us to a whole new dimension of the famous epics of India.

A self-taught mythologist, he is the author of several works on aspects of myth, including Myth = Mithya: A Handbook of Hindu Mythology, 7 Secrets from Hindu Calendar Art, 7 Secrets of Vishnu and the 7 Secrets of The Goddess.

Needless to say, his brilliant books and his version of myth and mythology has made him India’s favourite mythologist. He is now out with a charmingly illustrated retelling of the Ramayana for kids titled Sita, the girl who chose.

theindusparent caught up with the prolific writer for a conversation for all things mythology.

Of all the mythological stories which is the one that beautifully brings out the relationship of a mother and a child?

Every relationship is unique and one must not grade them as better or worse. For example, with Kaikeyi we see a relationship that is shaped by her ambition for her son, Bharat. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? With Sita, we see a single parent, who ensures her children, Luv and Kush, grow up learning good things about their father, even though he abandoned her.

Who is that one mythological woman that has impressed you the most?

Child psychologists tell us that we should never compare children as that can have serious issues with their self-worth and self-esteem. And yet, we are obsessed with drawing lists based on comparison. I feel every woman is unique and has something impressive about her.

I find Sita remarkable for her ability to make choices and blame no one. I find Surpanakha remarkable because she took a risk, even though she suffered for it. I find Sulochana remarkable for securing her husband’s corpse back.

Is it true that some of India’s favourite mythological characters were way more advanced than the humans of today? Any one particular character that is your favourite?

I think mythological characters are timeless. This means they exist in past, present and future. They are not better, or worse, than present day humans.

They just are like present day humans. We see Ravana amongst us who does not respect other people’s rules or choices. We see Hanuman amongst us who does things selflessly.

Kids today are exposed to iPads, gadgets, television and all the latest available technology. But when it comes to stories, they only want to hear about stories from the Ramayana and Mahabharata. What is it in these stories that kids find so attractive? 

A good story has many complex invisible layers but appears to be very simple. That is the nature of Ramayana and Mahabharata. They are psychological instruments that were created Vyasa to communicate Vedic truths to people. So they appeal to the child in us, but also help us become better adults. They connect with us viscerally. Sadly, we stop at a superficial level and rarely explore the complexity.

Any tips for parents on how to get your kids interested in mythological stories?

• Read the book yourself
• Encourage the children to read it aloud to you
• Discuss the story with children – don’t correct them
• Give your family one hour mythological story time each week: to read, retell, and discuss

Published on 29th October, 2016, on firstpost.com

Devdutt Pattanaik’s new book, Olympus – an Indian Retelling of the Greek Myths, neatly and with somewhat unpronounceable names, turns the tables on the usual re-tellings, by giving us a beloved foreign mythology in his trademark style. Curses are flung about with gay abandon, the dead brought back to life routinely, with beings half-men, half-women, and babies born to human moms and animal dads – in short, Greek snapshots that could be from ancient Indian albums. The similarities are fascinating: our Narada and their Iris, Olympus vs Kailash Parbat. God of the sea Poseidon’s desi counterpart Varuna who rides a dolphin. Prometheus embodies forethought and his brother Epimetheus, afterthought; in Hindu mythology Bhrigu is an intuitive and Brihaspati a rational adviser. Plus, the stories of sons raised by single moms, like Bharat by Shakuntala, and Theseus by Aethra.

As he draws us to this colourful compelling world of Greek gods and folklores, Pattanaik tells us why he found any similarity between Indian and Greek myths to be merely superficial. Here are some excerpts from the interview.

What does it feel like to write a story?

To see the world through different eyes. To realise that there is no one world, but different eyes create different worlds. And how the mismatch creates the soup of experience and emotions.

When was the first time you wrote something and thought, yes, this is what I want to do, write?

I wrote my first published article in a magazine that has a notorious reputation, but gave space to young writers always (perhaps to offset notoriety): Debonair. My first article was on ‘a son is born’. I did not accept the idea that men are privileged in our society. I see them as entrapped in the system that we choose to call patriarchy that someone assumes one gender is privileged over the other. When I wrote it, I knew writing helped me clarify my emotions, and express my thoughts. And that is when I said, yes, this is what I want to do.

What is your preferred time to write? And where usually do you write?

Early morning. Till noon preferably. On my desk if at home. On hotel desks, if I am in hotels. On restaurant tables in airport lounges, if travelling. In boardrooms, when waiting for a meeting.

What is your usual process of writing?

Directly on computer. Love writing the title first, blurb second, then table of contents, and then the book… Of course as I write, everything changes – title, blurb, table of contents and the book, of course.

How do you ‘see’ God?

A subjective truth born out of human acknowledgement of the very human ability to empathize, and understand, infinitely.

Would you call yourself a loner or someone who thrives on company?

When writing or thinking I like being alone. And after a talk. But in free time I love company – sometimes for intellectual conversations, sometimes to be silly, sometimes to just watch beautiful people being beautiful, but never fake polite conversations in a party.

While writing the story Are You Fresh? You say you were spooked…

I think as I imagined the world I was creating, it became so real, like a movie in my mind’s eye, and that got me spooked… the idea of human sacrifice and the detailed gory description that a pulp fiction demands.

You hint that life began with fear – and that fear is the one primary emotion that can have you believe anything.

The difference between a living organism and a lifeless object is hunger, the quest for food. Why does that organism seek food? To nourish itself. To prevent itself from starving, from dying. That is the most primal of fears. Of not being alive, when one has no food, or when one becomes food, or when the body simply is unable to fetch or consume food. This fear, like our body, has evolved and amplified over millions of years. We never discuss it. Herein lies the seed of our yearning for validation and meaning.

In The Girl Who Chose you give us Sita’s five choices. Which choice, according to you, most changed the course of the story?

Each course of the story is dependent on the choice made by Sita, in a way. But the decision to feed a hungry man rather than worry about personal safety was the most impactful. It reveals how good actions and intentions need not have good results, a lesson that impacts all moral and ethical thinking.

Which among all your books was the most traumatic to write?

Business Sutra. Suddenly a whole world of unexplored frameworks exploded; wealth (Lakshmi), power (Durga) and knowledge (Saraswati), and finally the whole world of identity (Brahma, Indra, Shiva, Vishnu). It was awesome.

You go back into the myth, legend and histories of queerness in India, especially in Shikhandi and Other Tales They Don’t Tell You. Do you think we are still struggling, as a society, to accept differences?

I only write on myth (transmitted beliefs that establish worldviews), not on legend (which is based on some historical fact) or history (that is obsessed with facts). Shikhandi deals with the Hindu (actually Indic belief) that there are more than two genders in mythologies based on rebirth. Actually there is a continuum of genders, which is why Sanskrit and Prakrit and Pali have words for third genders, and stories about them. We shy away from these stories as it challenges our assumed understanding of the world. I draw attention to them because if we get stuck in binaries we lose appreciation of nature in its most honest form – life.

In your new book Olympus – An Indian Retelling of the Greek Myths, you talk of how mythology and philosophy are the same and that they come together in symbols and precise language… Which was the first Greek tale you heard and what exactly fascinated you about it?

The first tale I heard about was about Medusa and her snake-like hair. And I kept wondering, would she not be most tortured about having snakes for hair. Would those snakes not have bitten her? In ancient art, Medusa’s face was shown as ferocious. In modern fantasy art, she was shown as sexy, a femme fatale. In South India and Sri Lanka we come upon many masks of folk gods and demons who have snakes for hair. Were they local Medusas? All this fascinated me.

And yes, to me the philosophy that reaches the masses takes the form of stories, symbols and rituals; rest remains in the ivory tower of the elite.

Everything here is so poetic – Iris and Arke who are rainbows… How did you balance all this poetry with your research? Were you ever overwhelmed by the lyrical aspect of the stories?

I focus more on structure that emerges from the entire body of mythology, than on details of the story. I want to show how different Greek mythic structure is from Hindu mythology. So I do not pay attention to details of a tale or the lyrics of the literature, which can so enchant us that we forget the woods for the trees.

You speak about the curious mixing of Greek philosophy and Christian theology, calling it the beginning of secularism…

I prefer the use of the word mythology, subjective truth of a people communicated through stories, symbols and rituals. In the 19th century, Europeans equated monotheism as religion, and so described all polytheistic faiths as mythology. They valued Greek philosophy but not Greek myths, just as Greek philosophers valued philosophy over poetry. The created a new word ‘theology’ when it came to explaining the nature of God, since they wanted to distinguish it from philosophy, and religion, as well as mythology. All these are highly political terms, which have been ripped apart in the 20th century by the post-modernists, deconstructionists and post-structuralists who saw the power behind these assertions and these binaries. Many Hindu supremacists even today, rather ironically, suffer from colonial hangover, cling to colonial definitions and biases, and so hate this word mythology.

In the 20th century, we have a word called secularism, which is also a mythology, one that has no God, or gods, but is a subjective truth based on ideas such as justice and equality. We forget that justice was a goddess called Dike in Greek mythology and the Greeks did not believe in equality – they even had a special heaven for heroes, like a gated community for aristocrats. The idea of equality comes from Christian mythology where everyone is in the tribe before the God of Abraham, where loyalty to God’s commandment is what matters, not justice. Secularism seeks justice and equality but not Greek gods or Christian God. We refuse to see its mythic roots because we cannot see secularism as part of a Western mythic continuum. Underlying this is the colonial assumption that ‘myth’ is everywhere except in Western developed countries.

The tapestry weaving contest between Athena and Arachne has a vivid ending – the latter is a spider who will weave webs for all eternity. Why are gods and mortals always trying to outwit each other?

Greek gods, not all gods, are uncomfortable with Greek mortals. For the Greek gods feared being overthrown by humans as they overthrew Titans and as Titans overthrew the Giants before them. Fear of the next generation is a consistent theme in Greek mythology that we realise when we see the grand design of Greek mythology that Olympus seeks to reveal.

You draw constant parallels with Indian mythology in this book. Which, to you, is the biggest similarity of them all?

I found more points of departure than parallels to be honest. All similarities are superficial. For the Greeks believed in one life and so one chance, while Hindu mythology emerged to celebrate rebirth. This paradigm shift is the most mindboggling as even very educated and erudite modern scholars in some of the best universities around the world do not realise its implications and relevance in both ancient and modern thought. They are too consumed in seeing similarities and so forget the vast difference. Perhaps because of the underlying assumption that all religions (one God mythologies) are same as in the case of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, and so all mythologies (many gods’ mythologies, actually) must also be same, as in case of Greek and Hindu mythology.

Do you think we are all part-Poseidons, never satisfied with what we have? Like Poseidon wasn’t content ruling merely the seas.

Yes, the various Greek gods do reflect different parts of our being. Like Zeus we struggle to keep unruly family members in check. And like Poseidon, we do feel deprived, denied, sidelined, often. So like Poseidon, we shake the system, and cause earthquakes from time to time – our family calls it a tantrum.

Prometheus made dolls out of clay and breathed life into them, creating mankind thus. Do all creation stories in mythology combine divinity with practical elements?

Brahma of Hindu Puranas creates humans (manavas) from his mind (manas). Here the material is actually non-material. Of course, we do have Sita emerging from earth, and Draupadi being born of fire. Ultimately, humans are created by matter and mind. The value placed on mind is very high in Hindu mythology.

Are we all at heart Tantalus – cursed with eternal hunger to have, to hold, always to be tantalized by what we don’t or can’t have?

Tantalus suffers eternal hunger and thirst and eternal deceptive enchantment by food and water. But this is not a human condition as much as punishment for daring to test the gods. And this test involves human sacrifice, which Zeus consistently frowns upon. Even worse is that the sacrifice is Tantalus’ own son. Thus a son is killed, a human is eaten, and gods are tested, all because of Tantalus, which justify his horrific punishment. Greeks were uncomfortable with human sacrifice, but not entirely, especially not of women. There is the sacrifice of Ipigeniah by Agamemnon to Artemis at start of Trojan War (later works say the Goddess abducted the girl before she was killed) and sacrifice of Polyxena at the insistence of the ghost of Achilles at the end of Trojan war.

Unfaithful wives are common in Greek mythology while fidelity is of paramount importance in Indian mythology. Does that underline gender dynamics between them and us then and now?

Penelope is a faithful wife. Helen, the mysterious daughter of Zeus, seems to love no one, as she embodies Nemesis, the vengeance of the gods. In Trojan War, the Greeks are punished by the gods who ensure their wives are unfaithful, which means faithfulness is desired but never obtained. Hindu mythology also values faithfulness and attributes magical powers to fidelity, just as men acquire magical powers through celibacy. So in Hinduism, both genders have to be restrained if they seek powers. In Greek mythology, when men try to be too chaste, they are eaten by the wild women of Bacchus, the Maenads, as in the story of Orpheus.

India’s biggest festival, Diwali is being celebrated across the country. For some it’s about colour and gaiety, family and holidays, and for others it’s about worshipping the Goddess Lakshmi and the prospect of prosperity. On Off Centre today, mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik explains the religious and cultural significance of Diwali. He also analyzes why the Hindu right favours Ram as the key Hindu deity.

Published on 16th December, 2016, on scroll.in

Interview conducted by Shiv Visvanathan

I meet Devdutt Pattanaik for a conversation. There is something easy, amiable and self-deprecatory about him. We settle down like two old friends in the Chinese restaurant at the Taj. He orders dimsum dumplings as appetisers and is ready for a chat.

He almost shrugs off the first question about the making of a Devdutt Pattanaik. He claims, “Mine was not a childhood full of myths and storytelling. There was no involvement with Ramayan and Mahabharat. I belonged to the generation teethed on Amar Chitra Katha and Chanda Mama, the first generation raised on comic books as folklore. We were indiscriminate or maybe cosmopolitan as children reading Asterix and Tintin with equal enthusiasm. Goscinny and Anant Pai were equally profound. I had a child’s interest in storytelling. My mother used to tell me I was a constant storyteller.

“I spent my childhood in Mumbai, my universe content among the Palghat Menons and Iyers. My favourite temple was the Subramanium Swamy temple. I was a good student and, like all good students, sentenced to medicine or engineering by parents who could not dream of less. A merit list student who qualified for Grant Medical College, I discovered I had little interest in medicine but was not brave enough to walk out; a student who did reasonably well in what he had been condemned to. A typical Indian middle class male competent at suffering subjects he disliked.”

The doctor who wasn’t

“I realised I did not like clinical medicine and yet, looking back, my training as a doctor gave me the analytical skills I applied to mythology. I was in a lost world and turned to the UPSC exams, which I passed, with history as a subject. I realised history at that time was navel-gazing by historians and had little to do with history.

“With nothing to focus on, I turned to medical communication and it was bread and butter for a few years. My friends in journalism asked me to write on culture. In fact, I saw myself as a quasi culturalist, not a professional academic but a folklorist of beliefs, norms, a passionate storyteller – who felt academics had ignored the fertile world of mythology. I was a freelance writer working on health columns. That is all I could do and it was sheer purgatory.

“My editors asked me to write a book on Shiva. At that time there was no book on Shiva. It sold a hundred copies. My editors had no sense of publicity or promotion. I then wrote on Vishnu. I kept writing and I am thirty books old today.

“Writing was my initiation into professionalism. I grew with every book. I applied the method of medicine to myth, searching for definitions, meaning, looking for sources of pilgrimage and recording festivals. I was literally a doctor of myth. But right through, there was one thing I looked for – patterns, the search for connections and connectivity.

“I thought I would take a course on myths offered by Mumbai University. My teachers had no sense of comparative myths, no knowledge of Robert Graves, no sense of the importance of the Golden Bough. We did not study myth but a syllabus on myth. There was no definition, no rigour – but I had the Indian talisman, a diploma which professed that I had a certificate for studying myth. There was little that was scientific, no sense of depth.

“The deeper I went as a writer, the more I realised the depth of the world available to me. The little money I had I would spend on books from the publisher Motilal Banarasidas. There was a whole body of knowledge I wanted access to, and I also realised that the public had little access to it. I realised one thing, that scholars wrote for each other. It was an incestuous world divided between scholars and storytellers.

“Indian intellectuals preferred to read philosophy while I wanted to enter the world of myth. But myth was seen as secondary, it was the world of folktale. The secondary had greater width and looked more lively. I was by now working for ad agencies. This was around 1996. I wrote Jaya while working in the world of pharmaceutical MNCs.”
Myths of management

“My management friends felt my conversations on myth made sense for problem-solving. My language probed deeper, and they found my analyses relevant. They had the resonance I was looking for. I began writing for The Economic Times, five articles which made a mark. I ended up writing Business Sutra, one of the longest-lasting columns, which survived as long as ET’s Corporate Dossier survived.”

Business Sutra was the turning point, more a tipping point, to his career. “Kishore Biyani recruited me as a consultant to explain India and how India thinks to the foreign visitor. In 2008, TED came to India and I gave my first TED talk on East and West, which was on the nature of difference. This went viral. Corporate dons coming to India emphasise and invoke its repeat value.”

There was something about management technique which was simplistic. It lacked the simplicity of mythology which is both formal and elegant. The world of management knew that India was different but it could not locate or specify the difference. Management needed roots, an indigenisation, it realised it could not be a second orientalism. There was a latent need for brokers like Pattanaik, and he was appointed Chief Belief Officer, a title he doted on.

“I didn’t want to mystify India – just explain and describe it with rigour. I wanted mythology to be a discipline, not an outpouring of sentiments. When you read a Karen Amstrong, you realise her outpourings have little intuitive sense of myth. I followed the way of medicine into myth, insisting on definitions, flow charts, diagrams, tables, fragments from scientific communication – which made myth feel like an anatomy class. I learnt a lot from Laurence Coupe at Manchester. The old man is dying now. His book, Myth (a Critical Edition), taught me that myth demanded discipline. What began as storytelling, is now a discipline.

“It was around that time that I met Santosh Desai. Santosh was more preoccupied with understanding cultural frameworks of behaviour but we shared a sense of structure. Structure gave order, coherence, a sense of creativity. I was fascinated with structure intuitively, without being a structuralist like Levi Strauss. I was home-made in that sense, intuitive, rigorous but not a trained academic. The audience loved it. I enjoyed straddling different worlds.”

For Devdutt, pattern is commonsense structure. It is rhythm and recurrence in a phenomenon. It is transformational. Most of our media, our management, our politics, do not seek structure. It is superficial, surface-oriented, sentimental and sensory. Intuitive rather than disciplinary. Method is critical and industry and management realise this. Let me put it this way: 70% is craft and the rest is art.

Management. Hollywood can industrialise creativity as craft. Myth, I feel, provides an ecology language, style, art and ethics for management thinking. It allows probes into the depth. Management in India, despite the search for roots, is superficial. There are a hundred leadership conferences, but few talk about power. Myth allows management to confront its deeper self.

“For me, Myth = Mithya was my PhD or equivalent. Business Sutra was a foray into the pragmatics of consultancy. Now I am in a third phase. I dig deep into evolutionary psychology. I use terms like “wolf pack”, “deer herd”, “beehive”, “animal instincts”, to look at organisations, point out similarities and differences.

“When I call an organisation a wolf pack, my audience smiles in recognition. They know my description is not a compliment. I use more evolutionary psychology rather than Jungian psychology to explain behavior.

“Hinduism is concerned with evolution, the evolution of consciousness, more than history. My choice is intuitive. The labels of discipline and expertise come later. Evolution as language, thought, consciousness, is what interests me. I am not evolutionary in the Darwinian sense, of the survival of the fittest, of a certain materialism. Evolution is about consciousness and cooperation.

“I cite books like Mark Pagel’s Wired for Culture, but to me such scholarship is illustrative. I fall back on patterns. For me the classic example is the Kolam, a few dots like a homemaker’s check-list. The rigour and complexity that emerge from it are amazing. No management theory has the rigour or aesthetics of a Kolam. A Kolam is structure, pattern, play. Myth is like that.”

Are we too defensive?

Pattanaik claims that we are defensive about what is considered Indian. We resent the fact that we are explained away in a particular way. There is a power in language that wishes us away as underdeveloped. Too busy being defensive, we are not able to crack the provincialism of the western code.

Whether it is Roberto Calasso, or Wendy Doniger, they read us linearly and insist we read our cultures as Abrahamiac continuities. The West misreads our gods. Rama is not a hero; Ramayana is not a quest. The West does not sense this. We are not reversing the Western gaze through Pattnaik’s latest book, Olympus. Our study is “non-contestational”.

The dumplings rest easily and the noodles disappear as we talk. There is a playfulness, an ease about the man. I want my storyteller to be like that. The BJP can be semiticised, our management cultures yield to pressure, but India dreams and thinks differently.

Olympus is an attempt to provide an Indian reading of Greek myths, to look for patterns, similarities. Western linearity does not understand our diversity. Yet when I tell management experts diversity is inefficient, they protest. Western thoughts based on equality leads to uniformity. The sense of diversity is superficial. It frightens a Morgan Stanley.

Olympus seeks to reverse the lenses on myth. For decades, the West has been reading our myths. Olympus is an attempt to create a deeper reciprocity. Pattanaik looks at Greco-Roman myths in particular. Students of myth like botanists love to classify and compare. Pattanaik makes a loving comparison of myths. He creates a sense of familiarity and understanding. It is a loving, lovable act of popularisation, an appetiser inviting every Indian to explore Greek myths.

It is the beginning of the democratisation of myth, a hospitality of storytelling which should lead to interesting debates; a conversation on khats and by firesides which welcomes new cosmologies into alien territories. Pattanaik’s enduring power is that he makes myth-reading an open, playful, almost domestic game, like Chinese Checkers or Scrabble.

Shiv Visvanathan is a social science nomad.

(c) Devdutt.com

Published on 14th June, 2017, on www.bonobology.com

by Raksha Bharadia

I was in conversation with theology and culture-expert Devdutt Pattanaik, author of several bestselling books on mythology and culture. Excerpts.

How has sexuality of women been discussed in Hindu mythological texts? Were women described or presented as sexual beings?

Kama, or desire, and Rati, erotics, has been a key theme in Hindu mythology. The desire of men and women has been seen in various ways: as producing children, as a commodity in the market, as a source of great pleasure, as well as a pathway to mystical ideas. There are stories of women who approach men for sex, stories where men are told it is their duty to make women happy, and women getting offended when their advances are rejected.

Was monogamy ever the prescribed way of living as suggested in religious texts and sub-texts? If not, how was monogamy seen and described?

Monogamy was meant for the housewife, not the apsara. Fidelity was seen as critical to the household, not per se. It was supposed to give women magical powers; turned her into a Sati who could withstand the blaze of fire. Widowhood was seen resulting from a woman’s infidelity. Thus it was not a divine ‘rule’ but rather an enforced ‘recommendation’. But it was accepted that being faithful is tough and both women and men are sexual beings who cannot restrict their desire to one person. A faithful wife, however, was celebrated. And Ram, the only faithful husband in mythology, was venerated.

What were the ways in which adultery has been described and seen in these texts? Are there any references to married women practicing adultery?

When Rishi Gotama returned to his house, he found his wife, Ahalya, in the arms of Indra, king of the devas. Furious, he cursed his wife Ahalya to turn into stone and Indra to be covered with sores. This story is found in the first chapter of the Ramayana, the Balkanda, which deals with the childhood and education of Ram, prince of Ayodhya. The sage Vishwamitra takes Ram to the hermitage of Gotama and shows him the stone that was once Ahalya. She has been condemned to be trodden upon by bird, beast and stranger.

Vishwamitra asks Ram to touch the stone with his feet and liberate Ahalya so that she can rejoin her husband. In the different versions of the Ramayana, the story of Ahalya is told differently. In some versions, she is the guilty adulteress, who gets caught in the act. In other versions, she is innocent, duped by the wily Indra who takes the form of her husband. There are versions where Ahalya is the bored and tortured wife who finds solace in the arms of Indra. The narrators struggle to explain why Ram forgives Ahalya. It makes sense for Ram to forgive someone wrongfully accused than someone who is truly guilty.

Perhaps compassion is also the lesson Vishwamitra was trying to teach Ram.

Do you see a drift in ways women’s sexuality was perceived in ancient times, and modern times? What could be the reason for change in the perception?

With the rise of Buddhism and monastic orders, women were increasingly seen as temptations who had to be avoided. Their sexuality had to be controlled. Celibacy was admired in men and chastity in women. With this, the fluidity of sexuality, that was present in Indian society, became more rigid.

What do you think of the modern urban man? Do you think they are being able to play up to their new roles well?

Every generation has to struggle with sexual rules of its times. Modern western society may be sexually liberated but in the process it has to sacrifice commitment. People grow up in families with multiple fathers and mothers as divorce becomes a norm. There is less domestic abuse. There is also a lot of uncertainty, less inter-dependence and more independence. Everything has a price. Today’s men are suddenly confronted with women who are apparently comfortable with sex, but have to deal with men discomforted with the idea that they are not the ‘one,’ that they are not ‘pati parmeshwar’ material, that they are just gandharvas, for entertainment. That can be a blow to their self-esteem.

(c) Devdutt.com

Published on 20th July, 2017, on www.youthkiawaaz.com

The word ‘Queer’ came to me in my teens as something I could use to describe myself. In contrast, ‘Indian’ was a word I was born with. I owned both, but growing up, all I saw were various attempts to divorce them: the health minister who termed homosexuality a disease; the classmate who sneered “this isn’t part of our culture”; the teacher who thought it was only something white kids with dyed hair did. Of course, a few opinions hardly amount to the truth. And in seeking a tenable link between ‘being Indian’, I arrived at the work by mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik.

The author of 30 books and 600 columns, Pattanaik is a mythologist, an illustrator, an engaging speaker, and a management guru. But for many , he’s the guy who made a sizeable chunk of India’s queer history accessible to a hungry readership. From the storytelling down to the trademark line art that fills the pages, thumbing through his books on Indian myths is an eye-opening experience. And “Shikhandi: And Other ‘Queer’ Tales They Don’t Tell You” is no exception. The book is a collection of myths from various Indian texts, like the Puranas, the Mahabharata, and the oral traditions of various Indian communities. Each of these myths reveal the fluid nature of gender and sexuality in India. First published in 2014, it has been re-released with the word ‘Queer’ added to the title. So we got chatting with Pattanaik about what makes this book so important. Read on!

Shambhavi Saxena (SS): “Shikhandi” utterly undoes what many of us have been taught – that rigid lines of gender and sexual behaviour are intrinsic to Indian society. When it first came out, was there any backlash? How did you react?

Devdutt Pattanaik (DP): No, there was no backlash. Most Indians are quite mature. I fear politicians and activists who are constantly manipulative. Most people are just bewildered as most of us don’t know much about our ancient texts, stories and philosophies. Our reading is very rudimentary.

SS: The new edition of this book very deliberately emphasises on “queerness”. Why did you think it was necessary to do this?

DP: Because we realised many people did not identify Shikhandi with queerness. So we abandoned the subtle approach and made things very explicit.

SS: This book is about “‘Queer’ Tales They Don’t Tell You’. Can you comment on why they don’t tell us? What can we as a society learn from these tales?

DP: I think they don’t tell us for many reasons. Some are embarrassed. Some do not know how to explain it. Some are disgusted. Some fear it will make us question established notions of gender and sexuality. Although Indian philosophy celebrates the fluid, Indian society is increasingly becoming rigid, because the traditional feel threatened by Westernisation and modernisation, also because many educated Indians feel powerful in making fun of all things Indian, especially Hindu.

SS: In the story from the “Yoga Vasishtha”, you wrote “The story demonstrates the essential discomfort of most Indians when it comes to sex. Sex is seen as something that takes one away from dharma.” Does this idea still have place in 21st century Indian society?

DP: Desire will always threaten social order. Queer desire even more so as it is unfamiliar and unpredictable. Buddha saw desire as the cause of suffering. In “Ramayana”, Ahalya’s desire turns her into stone. In 19th century we destroyed the devadasi culture by seeing it as exploitative and degenerate. Somewhere along the line, even today we valorize violence over love. We will kill a boy for kissing a boy. We prefer to see desire through the lens of sexual violence.

SS: You’ve written in detail about myths from around the world where female desire is suppressed. Are lesbian/queer women doubly suppressed in India? Is it because they pose some sort of threat?

DP: I think women are not allowed to talk about their sexual desire and feelings in general. They are expected to submit to marriage and family. A lesbian woman challenges all established norms. She is at a greater disadvantage as fellow women will also not support her. Imagine a lesbian woman born in a Dalit family in a tiny village in Odisha. Who does she talk to? How does she make sense of her longings? How will those who listen to her understand her longings? Is she lesbian first, Dalit first, Odia first, or woman first? The familiar comforts us. The unfamiliar frightens us and we react by rejecting it or violently suppressing it.
Photo courtesy of Penguin Random House.

SS: You actually have a background in medicine. Can you shed some light on where India is going wrong with regard to healthcare for trans people?

DP: We still have doctors and yoga teachers in our country openly advocating ‘cure’ for gay and lesbian desires; this despite global scientific evidence. Transgender people are accepted in some quarters as it is physical and visible; gay and lesbian desires are not visible and so are not that accepted in traditional societies. We don’t understand desire at all, and monastic traditions teach us to view it negatively. We valorise celibacy which is unnatural and see desire which is natural as a disease.

SS: The final section focuses on Ram, in a story about embracing members of the trans community. However, unlike all the other figures mentioned in the book, Ram himself does not represent fluid gender or sexuality. What was your reasoning behind including him?

DP: In Hindu mythology, Shiva is more masculine and Vishnu is more feminine. In Vishnu stories, Ram is very masculine while Krishna is androgynous. So the rigid and fluid balance each other. Contrast this with Islamic and Christian mythology that have no room for the queer or androgynous. One does not have to be queer to include the queer; Ram is not queer but he includes the queer. That is the idea. The idea of queer is very much part of Buddhist, Jain and Hindu philosophy. In Buddhist mythology, “pandakas” or homosexuals were not allowed to be monks. So there was discrimination in Buddhism. But no one talks about this as we prefer to imagine Buddha as secular and inclusive, which is not quite true. He rejected the sexual, especially the feminine and the queer.

SS: In the book, you ask: “If a man uses medical science to bear a child and lactate, how would ‘modern’ society treat him?” At the risk of sounding like a lazy interviewer, I’d like to pose the same question to you.

DP: Modern society is equipped to include him, at least theoretically. But let us not forget such stories are found in traditional Hindu stories and academicians prefer to see Hinduism as ‘patriarchal’. There is a vast gap between theory and practice.

SS: So much of scholarship on queer culture in India has been a ‘retrieval’ or ‘recovery’ process, looking back at history, myth and local traditions. Are there any problems that come with trying to locate queerness in the past, that too from our modern – even westernised – perspective?

DP: We need to retrieve it as the ‘modern westernised’ perspective chooses not to see it and assumes modernity is its own invention. That is not true. Modernity, which is comfortable with diversity and mingling, was very much part of India’s past. Both the Left that thinks the worst of India and the Right that imagines India as heteronormative have a biased view of the past. We choose not to see the many diverse aspects of the past as it does not fit into our convenient, combative, and restrictive Left/Right politics. Past needs to be retrieved only to show that Indian society was fluid and inclusive in the past, and can be so do today. Not to justify the present. Not everything in India’s past is desirable (Sati or Caste for example).

SS: Do you have any advice for students and scholars working on contemporary queer culture in India?

DP: Beware of activists posing as academicians. Understand that there is room for rigidity and fluidity. And a functional society does need rules. So we need to be flexible according to context. And fluidity can be accommodated only with love, not anger (fashionable in many politicians/activists today).

How figures who transcend gender and sexuality would respond to the following common assumptions:

“Performing certain activities is entirely dependent on our biological sex.”
Gopeshwar (who became a woman to dance, in Vraj oral tradition) would say: “You have no clue how diverse the world is, do you?”

“It’s a woman’s nature to only find fulfilment in a relationship with a man.”
Ratnavali (who became a companion to a female friend in the Skanda Purana) would say: “You have no clue how much love can accommodate, do you?”

“A woman should keep her passions in check.”
Kali (who became a man to enchant milkmaids in the oral tradition of Bengal) would say: “You are terrified of the unfamiliar, are you not?”

“A child raised by two men will not have a good family life.”
Samavan (who became a wife to his male friend in the Skanda Purana) would say: “Let go of control, and learn to embrace alternate realities.”

(c) Devdutt.com

Published on 22nd July, 2017, on www.scroll.in

Devdutt Pattanaik is a man on a mission. With his prolific writings on mythology – whether from the point of view of management, children’s books, everyday wisdom, or queerness – he hopes to influence the way society perceives myth, and in turn, itself.

His three recent book releases have bumped up his bibliographical count to over 40 and we aren’t even counting the many articles he writes or the lectures he gives. While other authors go around promoting themselves one book in hand, this man writes like one possessed. Like the rishis in the myths he so often writes about, he seems unperturbed by the brickbats a certain shade of internet saffron likes to throw at him. He also seems unmindful of the upturned noses of the academia, for he has his sales figures to back him up. The lay lover of mythology loves him; the LGBTQ community loves him; and most importantly, he loves himself.

In an interview with Scroll.in, Devdutt Pattanaik ranges over politics, “touchiness”, being gay, sex and sadhus, and his own addiction to writing.

We’ve seen three new releases from you recently, and the count of your published books has now touched 40! These are in addition to the several hundred articles you’ve written and continue to write. What drives such prodigious writing?
Yes, three books – Leader: 50 Insights From Indian Mythology, Culture: 50 Insights From Mythology, and My Hanuman Chalisa. The first two are a collection of essays written over the past 10 years. So I did not have much to do. The third is fresh and new writing. Hindu mythology is vast and voluminous. There is so much we don’t know or has not been presented in a simplified way, making sense to contemporary times. So there is so much to write. And I am addicted to writing – it clears my thoughts, refines my ideas, makes me calm and focused. All this enables the voluminous writing.

What view of their mythology do you want Indians to have? How has the response been to your efforts in that direction?
Not just Indians, every human. I want people to understand that a myth is “somebody’s truth” and so needs respect. We still have the colonial hangover and believe that my truth is the truth, and we have the scientific arrogance that objectivity is truth, or rationality is truth, and dismiss subjectivity. We are trained to divide the world into fact (everybody’s truth) and fiction (nobody’s truth). Even journalists and historians fall into this trap. This is the primary source of all conflicts.

If only we allowed people to revel in their myth and taught ourselves to live with other people’s myth, the world would be better. Different people imagine the world differently, and so have different notions of god and life and purpose and death.

The response has been good. But my view on mythology shakes things up. Naturally those who believe in one god/truth, don’t like my thoughts. Singularity gives us power. Plurality demands love. And we prefer the former over the latter.

As prolific as your writings on mythology are, you’ve steered mostly clear of the realm of mythological fiction. Why is that?
I have written The Pregnant King, a novel, which is mythological fiction, based on queer stories from the Mahabharata: a king who gets pregnant and the conflict that emerges because of that in the world driven by patriarchal values. And I have written a short story, Is he Fresh? for Tehelka, which is fiction, of course, on human sacrifice. I’m planning another work of fiction, maybe in 2018. But let’s see. Fiction is liberating, but is a different craft that I am not particularly good at.

You write repeatedly about gender and sexuality in a manner that goes against the conventional grain. Have your writings brought about any change in LGBTQ as well as heteronormative communities?
The right wing manipulates Hindu mythology to show that Indian culture had no room for anything queer. In this, they mimic the Muslim and Christian fundamentalists. The left wing manipulates Hindu mythology to show how Ramayana is patriarchal and Hindu gods are misogynists. This is very disturbing since both cloak their language as if presenting objective facts. So this had to be done.

As a gay person, this is my personal politics. No historian writes about LGBTQ history in India. Why? Did Gandhi and Ambedkar and Nehru and Savarkar support gay people they encountered or were they silenced or rendered invisible? Western writers make Indian queer people exotic by focussing only on highly feudal, marginalised, and exploitative groups. We don’t want to admit the homophobia embedded in the “Idea of India” or the Constitution.

By contrast, Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain mythologies admitted that nature always has third genders and sexualities. You will never have god in Islam, Judaism or Christianity embracing the female gender, or queer sexuality. But Hindus have Shiva who becomes Gopeshwara (a gopi for Krishna) and Vishnu who becomes Mohini for Shiva. That’s so wonderful and liberating. But no celibate saffron clad monk will write about this. Nor will khadi wearing “youth” politicians.

Let’s talk about one of your latest releases. My Hanuman Chalisa sounds a little like your earlier endeavour, My Gita, at least going by the title. How similar or different is it?
I am very fond of possessive pronouns, in this age of copyright and intellectual patents (which I feel are going overboard and being violently commercial). It draws attention to the value of subjectivity in conversations. And does not give the false sense of objectivity that gurus and babas tend to market in their discourses. This is part of the series where I do a “darshan” of scriptures, not just gods. I help people navigate through scriptures that seem forbidding (Bhagavad Gita) and simple ones whose sophistication is often overlooked (Hanuman Chalisa).

My Gita was a very brave book, given how much it means to Hindus. While some liked it, some others panned it citing inaccuracies in translation and thereby, interpretation. What are your expectations with My Hanuman Chalisa, another text Hindus are very touchy about?
It is significant to note that despite clarifying that it is “my” understanding of the Gita, and that I don’t seek to be accurate or objective you have people pointing to “inaccuracies”. If there was an “accurate” understanding of Gita, why would so many scholars translate the work so many times and write so many commentaries (over 1000 at last count)?

The great eighth century scholar Shankaracharya’s commentaries were rejected by Ramanuja and Madhava in the 12th century. Dyaneshwara’s Marathi work and Achyatananda Dasa’s Odia work were rejected by Brahmins. Western scholars reject Arya Samaj leader Dayananda Saraswati’s creative translation of the Vedas, or the creative translation of the Vedas by Aurobindo, who turned everything into the mystical.

But more recently, a virulent strain of “Hindu saviours” have emerged amongst Indians who have given up Indian passport or residence, who live in New Jersey and Singapore, and are Sanskrit hobbyists. They hate people who do not believe in the “Out of India Theory” that all civilisation came from India. So their criticism is venomous. They compensate for their passport shame with hypernationalism and aggressive Hindutva politics. If you do your research, you will note that the criticism of My Gita comes from that lobby. They keep claiming I am a student of Wendy Doniger and Sheldon Pollock, not realising that my “Dr” title comes from Medicine (Mumbai University). No point arguing with trolls. In fact they inspired me to write My Hanuman Chalisa.

My friends who are professors in Sanskrit love my work, fully aware of the liberties and leaps of faith I take with decoding, and see it as inspiring people to go deeper towards scriptures. If we worry about “touchy” people all the time, then White people will dominate the world, Dalits will have to stay oppressed, women will never be educated, gay people will forever be invisible, and celibate saffron-robed old men will tell women what good sex is.

Speaking of touchiness, that seems to have become the hallmark sentiment of Indians. You receive your fair share of trolls on social media. How do you deal with it?
It’s a global phenomena. It’s the result of the internet, which has expanded everyone’s desires, with no channel to satisfy these desires but a lot of channels to direct their rage and frustration. We have to pay the price of modernity. That which gives us the smart phone also gives us the dumb troll. Like pigeons who shit on us, we can do nothing about them. Hating them simply mirrors their stupidity. So I use the negative energy and turn it into positive energy by writing a book. The more they attack me, the more books I will write, and so while they sink into darkness, I will have a good time, and even more success, I hope.

From wanting to shift perceptions about mythology, you seem to want to take on perceptions about culture with your next book, Culture: 50 Insights from Mythology. Is there a big idea behind it?
Culture is essentially domesticated and transformed nature. These are essays written over ten years that explain various facets of Indian society from rebirth to Gita to Puranas to Rama to Nautanki to plants to planets to temples to crows to sages. As you read the essays, an underlying unity emerges. That is the big idea.

What’s your view of the culture of plurality that India has always taken so much pride in, but which is under threat now?
Plurality and diversity are inefficient. This bothers politicians and businessmen, who will therefore always be anti-plurality. Gandhi and Nehru were also anti-plurality, but in a different way. In a plural society you do not censor or ban. Nehruvian India did censor and ban RSS writings and even The Satanic Verses. They created the tools that the BJP is now using in a horrible way. Same-same but different.

The breaking up of India’s plurality began with the “Idea of India”, where caste was seen as a static oppressive ideology rather than an expression of India’s plurality (with disturbing exploitative elements). Indian customs, beliefs, costumes and cuisines can be mapped along caste lines. But we don’t do this because it is politically incorrect. Thus diversity gagging began much before the saffron brigade. They are just taking it forward by using a very old model – creating a new deity called “Bharat Mata” who overshadows all other gods and goddesses.

RSS functions like a Hindu sampradaya (sect or community) dominated by male Brahmins (mostly from Maharashtra) that is currently very dominant. They are, however, one of the many Hindu sampradayas. The rest patiently wait for it to eventually ebb. For we know in Hinduism, time changes everything. What comes today will be gone tomorrow.

When you deal with culture, you’re perilously close to the subject of religion – the veritable tipping point for all discourses in India right now. How do you hope to tackle that?
What is the first indicator of humanity? The hearth. What is the first indicator of culture? Burial sites. Burial started because of belief in life after death. This began the world of mythology. So myth is intimately connected with culture. No myth, no culture. “Make America great again” is rooted in the American mythology of the American Dream. The notion of “Acche Din” is rooted in the myth of “Promised Land” and “Happily Ever After”. China’s Communist Party functions no differently from Chinese Emperors, who believed in central control, the Middle Kindgom and the “Mandate of Heaven”. There is no escaping myth in culture.

The mythology of one god is what we call religion. In colonial times, the term mythology was restricted to polytheism. But now thanks to the rise of science and atheism, even monotheism is seen as mythology. But when you stretch it further, atheism is just the mythology of no god. Mythology of one god gives rise to intolerance. Mythology of no god creates nihilism. Mythology of many gods creates pluralism. Atheists and nationalists may reject gods, but replace them with ideas.

After books, columns, TV shows, and public lectures, what’s next for you?
A cobra goes after its prey. A python waits for the prey to enter its open mouth. I prefer the python’s approach. I will wait for new avenues and opportunities to emerge and arrive.

What’s your idea of utopia?
People chatting, laughing, drinking, eating, dancing, thinking, exploring, and feeling safe even when they are at their most vulnerable. A world where we focus on other people’s hunger as much as we focus on our own, and create opportunities for everyone to find food.

Published on 23rd July, 2017, in the Indian Express

Written by Paromita Chakrabarti

Usually, when one says ‘my Hanuman Chalisa’, which is the title of your new book [published by Rupa], it implies the possibility of multiple opinions. Is there still space for that in India?

The ‘my’ part is there, the question is whether ‘your’ part is respected or not. That’s the problem. My space always exists. Wisdom is when I start appreciating your space. Quarrels start when ‘my’ becomes ‘the’. The moment I acknowledge ‘yours’ and then have the courage to expand ‘my’ and create an osmotic relationship between ‘mine’ and ‘yours’, then something wonderful happens. That’s when Upanishad happens. For me, that is very important.

In the book, you write how the Ramayan should be read metaphorically and not literally. In current times, given the insistence on ‘mandir wahi banayenge’, how does one reconcile the two positions?

It’s the eternal clash between the world of mathematics and the world of metaphor. You must have met people who do not understand metaphors. These are the people we call engineers. A good engineer must not know metaphors. He better know his mathematics. This is the world of the IIT and the IIM, a literal world. For someone who is literal, Hanuman becomes a monkey. For a person who is metaphorical, a monkey becomes the mind. It is the metaphor which takes you towards infinity. Even mathematics takes you to the world of infinity and only because you allow metaphor to enter mathematics. Because infinity cannot be measured and god cannot be measured.

Hanuman is quite a ‘secular’ god. In your book, you speak of how the nawabs of Lucknow had a festival to celebrate him. Was it a conscious decision to write about a populist god at this juncture?

Not really. Although, as I wrote, I realised the relevance of it in today’s time. Whenever I get a negative feeling, I turn to the Hanuman Chalisa. There’s something about the Ramayana, and, Hanuman, especially, in the Ramayana, that sort of calms you down. In Bombay, there will be a little Hanuman temple in every local train. For me, that is the greatest shrine, because I will see the ordinary man bowing down in front of it and in that ordinariness, I find a lot of power.
I have seen a lot of troll activity. These are educated people, but they just want to win an argument. You see the rage and the frustration. In the Gita, there is a line: ‘When you are angry, you get deluded and when you get deluded, you get confused, and when you get confused, you lose your intelligence and then everything is lost.’ And that’s what is happening. Everybody seems to be fighting for the gods and I have a vision of the gods looking at them, rolling their eyes in response. I was just telling someone that Hinduism is supposed to be mellifluous, not venomous. We have adopted the venom of other people rather than spreading our mellifluousness. That is the tragedy.

What do you mean by the ‘venom of other people’?

Donald Trump, (Vladimir) Putin – angry people, such angry people. Hillary Clinton. Do you see mellifluousness when you see world leaders? They are all trying to be men. They are not doing tribhanga. There is no grace. The European Union is trying to create a world through banking, not through poetry. So, the absence of poetry in the world creates a world of anger. No ras, no anand. We want to be that. Our culture was never that. People want to defend India, but they don’t know what they are defending. What is that India? Because when you talk of this side of India, they are ashamed of it, because it’s feminine. But look at Hanuman. Super macho, right? That’s how everyone thinks of him. But he’s not. He’s a poet, a musician, a servant, a master, a fighter. He’s a monkey who becomes so many things. But we only want to see him as a god with a six-pack, who bashes up people. Really? This is engineering at work. The end of metaphor.

So, are you saying science and faith are completely divorced?

Not at all. A good scientist understands faith. I have worked with the best scientists in the world and they understand religion better than anyone else and a good religious man respects science. But, you have to be at that level. It is always the tragedy of mediocrity. The mediocre scientist thinks that science is about truth. Science is not about truth. Science is about knowledge. Religion is not about truth. Religion is about knowledge. And knowledge expands. It’s expansive. Truth is static. You fight over truth. You don’t fight over knowledge. You gather more and more knowledge. And therefore, it will always be a never-ending process. But we have created this world of expertise – the biologist doesn’t read physics, the physicist doesn’t read mathematics. They make fun of each other. Science has become religious and religion is pretending to be science. That is where the problem is. Neither understands each other. Gyan, bigyan are complex processes. The softness of it, the gentleness of it, is forgotten completely. So, science has become harsh, it won’t let faith in. This is a very American way of looking at things. And religion has become very rigid. These are all venomous ideas.

Is that why we are attempting to establish myths — that aeroplanes existed in India 7,000 years ago or that the world’s first plastic surgery happened here — as realities?

Some people with low self-esteem and insecurity need to prove these. When do you tell people that I am bigger than you? When you are insecure, look at Hanuman. Sukshmo roop bhi leta hain, bhim roop bhi leta hain, virat swaroop bhi leta hain. He can be whatever he wants to be. He can expand and contract himself. Please look at the people we are talking about. Do they ever want to contract themselves for others? They always want to dominate. That’s hardly atma-gyan. That’s hardly Indian wisdom.

At what point did this rupture happen?

It was always there. It will always be there. There will always be a Ravana and a Rama. And you will have people today who will defend Ravana. The best part is a feminist defending Ravana although Ravana denies a woman consent.

But doesn’t that also imply a space for debate? Conversations are now becoming increasingly unilinear.

It is because we want to win the argument. When I want to win the argument like a lawyer in a Supreme Court, I stop seeing what is criminal. I can turn anything into anything. I will argue anything — because I hate Rama, therefore, Ravana must be good. It’s not coming from wisdom. It’s not coming from discovery and curiosity. It’s coming from the desire to win an argument. It’s ranabhoomi, not rangabhoomi. It is not science. It is not curiosity. It is the desire for victory. So, one has to ask: where are you going? The left likes to mock the right, the right likes to mock the left. Why are we so insecure? Why do we need to win this argument?

Where do you think this insecurity comes from?

I think because they feel invalidated in life. When we don’t know who we are, we have to discover our values – focus on ourselves rather than seeing how other people see us. I think that is what is happening around us. I think we don’t know ourselves. There is no atma-gyan. Hanuman is a monkey and god. He is not saying I want to be someone else. He is happy being a vanar. But, if I tell someone, you are a monkey, he doesn’t come back and say, ‘Oh, you mean I am Hanuman?’ He feels insulted. We don’t see the Hanuman in the monkey. We don’t see the monkey in the mind. We don’t know this journey. And somewhere along the line, this is being celebrated. Insecurity is being celebrated. Victimhood is being celebrated. That has become glamorous. To be wise is not glamorous because a wise man will not scream and shout.

Do you think this insecurity is being exploited more at this juncture?

It is very visible right now. We have been told that everybody has a voice, but we forgot to tell that everybody also has ears. Everybody has a voice and we have stopped listening. That’s the whole thing — shruti. Hanuman chants Ramayana all the time so that we listen to the epic. But we are not listening to the Ramayana. And even when we listen, we don’t listen to the metaphor. We listen to the mathematics of the power games. We are not listening to what is being communicated. What is the antidote to that? Stop shouting and start listening.

Is it possible at all then to gain a middle ground between people like Dinanath Batra and the left?

They have to go inwards and neither of them is willing to go inwards. See, atma-gyan is not something either of them cares about. The left will dismiss this as eastern mumbo-jumbo and I don’t know Dinanath Batra, but he seems to be a person who just doesn’t get metaphor. Whatever little I have read about him implies roopak ka gyan nahi hain. So how do I explain (that) to him? It’s his karma and he has to live with it. Maybe, in the next life, or maybe, in this life, one day, he will suddenly discover it. We will all discover it. When you discover atma, the world just becomes a wonderful place. It happens because you have affected the core of your being. I think we are too busy trying to change the world and it will never be changed. The world will never change. But we can always change.

Internet, Harry Potter, Chetan Bhagat changed the way how India read, says Devdutt Pattanaik

By: PTI July 26, 2017 1:57 PM

With over 30 books to his credit, Pattanaik recalls how around 2005-06, he was still a part-time writer when the game for writers changed. (IE)

The publishing industry in India underwent a major change over a decade ago, thanks to the Internet, Harry Potter and Chetan Bhagat, says popular writer Devdutt Pattanaik. With over 30 books to his credit, Pattanaik recalls how around 2005-06, he was still a part-time writer when the game for writers changed. Trained in medical studies, he worked in the pharmaceutical industry and wrote part-time, initially as a hobby which he had developed in college in the early 1990s. Noting that writing books back then “couldn’t help you run a family”, he says he worked for a good 15-16 years during which he authored as many as 10 books. “With time, people started recognising me. Someone suggested I should write full time and that happened only in 2008. Things happened, there were good opportunities,” Pattanaik told PTI in an interview on the release of his new book “My Hanuman Chalisa”, published by Rupa Publications. Asked what made the difference, he says, “Internet made the difference.” “Websites like Flipkart came. It was like a world of books opening up for people. For example, in Bombay, going to a book shop was like going for an expedition. It was difficult finding a quality book shop. One had to travel far… But with the Internet, the book reached your home on a click.

“Second, globally books like the Harry Potter series and the Lord of the Rings attracted people towards the world of magic and enchantment. They were so huge that even we got a shake up from that. “Then, in India, came Chetan Bhagat. The world of reading and writing changed. It was revolutionary! Nowadays some people mock him, but what he has done is huge. People who didn’t read started reading… so all these opened up doors for me,” he says. However, Pattanaik confesses that he has only read a few pages of the J K Rowling classic and a few excerpts of his “good friend” Bhagat’s paperbound.

“I tried reading them, but their subjects don’t interest me. I am more into mythology, which I am passionate about and derive please from,” he adds. Asked about his favourite authors, he mentions the names of Vyas (who wrote the Mahabharata), Valmiki (who wrote the Ramayana) and Sukh Muni (the main narrator of the Bhagavata Purana). Pattanaik, who wrote four books on the Ramayana, says he is “obsessed” with the epic and can write 10 more books on it. “I write for ‘aatm-rati’ (for the happiness of the soul). And I want to share this happiness with people,” he adds.