The UC Santa Cruz Foundation presents the 10th annual Sidhartha Maitra Memorial Lecture--featuring acclaimed Indian author and columnist Gurcharan Das--on Sunday, October 17, at 3 p.m. in the UCSC Music Center Recital Hall.
Das will speak on the topic, “The Dharma of Capitalism,” drawing from his new book, The Difficulty of Being Good, which examines the ethical dilemmas that we all face in our daily lives.
Das writes a regular column for six Indian newspapers, including the Times of India, as well as periodic pieces for Newsweek, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Affairs.
He is the author of the international bestseller India Unbound--a narrative account of India from independence to the global information age--which has been translated into more than a dozen languages and filmed as a documentary by the BBC.
Das’s book credits also include the novel A Fine Family; a book of essays, The Elephant Paradigm; and the anthology Three English Plays.
He graduated with honors from Harvard University in philosophy and was CEO of Procter & Gamble India before he took early retirement to become a full time writer.
In his talk, Das turns to the Mahabharata, the ancient Indian epic work of moral philosophy, to consider contemporary moral failures, as well as his own search for a more purposeful life.
Focusing on the basic question—“Why should we be good?”—Das’s lecture will focus on how to live our lives in an examined way and reclaim a meaningful ideal of virtue.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Admission to the 2010 Sidhartha Maitra Memorial Lecture is free, but tickets are required. The lecture will be followed by a public reception. For more information, contact the UCSC Special Events Office at (831) 459-5003 or specialevents@ucsc.edu.
