BOOKsHELF
Author: Devdutt Pattanaik
“I help leverage
the power of myth
in business...life.”
Reinterpreting
Mythology, Decoding
the Human Mind
Mythological renderings by Indian
writers are the flavour of the season.
Through Devdutt Pattanaik’s expert
lenses, mythology takes on a nuanced
meaning and wisdom. By Sangita Thakur Varma
“…as is belief, so is Behaviour,
so is Business. This is Business
Sutra, a very Indian approach to
management.” Profound words,
simply said. That’s Devdutt
Pattanaik’s book in a nutshell,
as summarised by him. But
as you read along, you get the
feeling that it has layers upon
layers of meaning. The best part
is that the author lays bare the
kernel of truth without obfuscation and the reader comes
away feeling enlightened.
Given the title, the reader may
be forgiven for approaching the
book from the narrow perspective of a business/management
treatise. The case studies are
there and so are the infographics,
but not what a run-of-the-mill
business book offers. Instead,
you have fictitious stories that
are illustrative and quaint illustrations drawn by the author
that seem to be unfolding a
parallel parable pictorially.
To really understand the plot of
the book, we must first acquaint
ourselves with a bit of the
author’s background. Pattanaik
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is as intriguing as the pageturner he has written. Through
the first two chapters he not
just introduces the compelling
premise of his management
theory, but also weaves into
it an interesting biography.
Trained to be a doctor, Pattanaik
chose to work in the medical
industry in order to fund his
passion for mythology. After 15
years in the healthcare industry,
he donned the hat of Chief Belief
Officer at Future Group in 2008,
a designation that he says often
induced incredulity. His role
was to make people realise the
critical role of belief in business.
Before taking us on a journey
of Business Sutra vis-à-vis Indian
mythology, Pattanaik presents
a brilliant analysis of the beliefs
prevalent in various cultures in
the Chapter From Goal to GazeDecoding Western, Chinese and
Indian Beliefs, and how it has preconditioned the people of the particular land to see things through
their lens of subjective reality. He
traces the roots of these beliefs
to the mythologies of the land
About the
authors
Devdutt
Pattanaik,
a physician,
spent15
years in the
pharmaceutical
and healthcare
industry before
taking up his
passion for
mythology as a
full-time vocation.
He wears
many hats—of
author, speaker,
leadership coach
and illustrator—
drawing upon
the vast reservoir
of myth, to
demonstrate its
relevance to life
and work. He
has authored
25 books and
400 articles on
Indian and world
mythologies,
both for children
and adults.
which he calls the map of the
mind. And this brings us to the
critical importance of mythology in understanding motivations, impulses, and thoughts
that guide the behaviour of the
people. These are the people
who form our increasingly global
workplaces. Business Sutra surely
changes our drishti (limited
to objective reality) to darshan
(mind expanded to worldview).
Trained to see only objective
reality, we tend to question the
existence and veracity of mythological characters and events.
Pattanaik says this is because we
are looking through sociological
and historical lenses and not
symbolically and in psychological
terms. Instead of questioning
the existence of Lord Ram or
Sita, we should try to see which
aspects of our personality they
represent. The realistic case
study that Pattanaik presents
after each mythological story
mimics it closely. Times have
changed but the same beliefs
are guiding human action.
Seen from this perspective,