Moral Intelligence

Authors:     Doug Lennick, Fred Kiel
Published:  2007
Publisher:   Wharton School Publishing
Paperback: 336 pages

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This book is in three parts.

Part One introduces the concept of moral intelligence.

The authors define moral intelligence as, "the mental capacity to determine how universal human principles should be applied to our values, goals , and actions."

While interviewing several successful business leaders they found that all these leaders had a moral compass - a set of deeply held beliefs and values. Hence they argue that "strong moral skills are not only an essential element of successful leadership, but are also a business advantage."  Authors believe that everyone is inherently moral, however many of us need to discover and understand our moral compass and the role it plays in their being an effective leader. Our goals and behavior should be aligned to our moral compass. A technique to identify the components of our moral compass, goals and behaviors is outlined. This is followed by an introduction to the  three essential qualities - moral intelligence, moral competence and emotional competence - which keep our moral compass, goals and behaviors aligned.

Part Two is about developing the moral skills.

There are four universal principles which the authors have found to be the key for effective leadership - Integrity, Responsibility, Compassion, Forgiveness.

There is a set of moral competencies associated with each principle as described below:

1. Integrity: Acting consistently with principles, values and beliefs; Telling the truth; Standing up for what is right; Keeping promises.
2. Responsibility: Taking responsibility for personal choices; Admitting mistakes and failures. Embracing responsibility for serving others.
3. Compassion: Actively caring about others.
4. Forgiveness: Letting go of one's own mistakes; Letting go of others' mistakes.

All these moral competencies are discussed at length along with concrete real-life examples encountered in business situations. 

In addition the emotional competencies - Self-Awareness, Personal Effectiveness, Interpersonal Effectiveness etc. - that help us in maintaining alignment of moral compass, goals and beliefs are also discussed.

In Part Three, the authors focus on the strategies which leaders use to create morally smart organization be it a large organization or an entrepreneurial set up. They firmly believe that the principles of leadership effectiveness - Integrity, Responsibility, Compassion and Forgiveness - are applicable to organizational effectiveness as well. 

In addition for entrepreneurial set ups they lay out the following Five Maxims of Moral Entrepreneurship:

1. Build a business that helps others. If your product or service doesn't make the world a better place, why bother?
2. Choose your partners wisely.
3. Hold on tight to your core values.
4. Surround yourself with employees who share your values.
5. Put your people-and your organization-first.

The Epilogue which talks about becoming a global moral leader. It also provides an update on the conditions of the companies and leaders who demonstrated the devastating financial consequences of moral stupidities and  also those who displayed a high degree of moral intelligence in pursuit of their companies' success.

The Appendices of the book consist of  very useful survey called Moral Competency Inventory (MCI) survey, which will help you identify your moral strengths and weaknesses. Guidelines on strengthening your moral skills are also provided. The MCI survey can also be taken free online at http://www.moralcompass.com/self-assessments.php

A landmark book in which the authors have put forward convincing arguments that business and ethics do go well together. It is a moral science lesson for the business leaders. A MUST READ !

What The Customer Wants You To Know

Author:      Ram Charan

Published: 2007

Publisher:  Penguin Group

Hardcover: 192 pages

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This book by Ram Charan, an internationally acclaimed management consultant, is primarily targeted at Sales function in organizations.

The book highlights what is wrong with conventional approach of selling in most of the organizations. Sales force interacts mainly with customer’s purchasing department and the entire sales discussion revolves around price.

As per Ram Charan this alone will not ensure a healthy top-line growth of an organization. He proposes an approach called Value Creation Selling (VCS) . VCS requires putting more effort in learning about the customer's business and even customer's customer's business in great detail. The more a company knows about its customers, better it will be at identifying their concerns and devising products and services that will help address them.

The best approach for getting to know more about your customer's business is to put in all efforts to become his trusted partner. In fact becoming a trusted partner to the customers was the vision of the company which I once worked for and my CEO made it a point to enthusiastically talk about it in almost every communication of his (Company: Digital GlobalSoft, CEO: Som Mittal, currently the President of NASSCOM)

In this book, Ram Charan tells how to become trusted partner of your customers by understanding - their  business opportunities and their competition; how decisions are made in their organization; their company culture, its dominant psychology and values ; their goals and priorities both short-term and long-term, clearly and specifically.

Having gained the customer trust, the next step is to prepare a Value  Account Plan (VAP) and present it to customers. VAP is an indispensable document that defines the value proposition and the business benefits the customer can expect to get from it. The author provides a template for VAP and explains how to go about creating it. He also provides guidance on how to prepare and make a pitch using VAP.

The book also discusses how to create and sustain a  sales force which implements VCS . The author recommends that recruiting and training for sales should focus on people who have a fundamental grasp of business acumen and are inclined to be team players and team leaders. He also stresses the role the Top Management needs to play in sustaining the VCS process by promoting a culture where all employees proactively think in terms of meeting the customer's need and work collaboratively with the sales force. In addition to this sustaining VCS will also involve establishing  multiple functional contact points between the company and its customer, incorporating post-sale servicing in the process and maintaining confidentiality of information shared by the customer.
Ram Charan firmly believes VCS is the way an organization should adopt to get ahead of its competition for it fosters stronger customer relationships and results in long-term rewards in terms of market share and revenue.

An excellent introduction to VCS  in a concise and easy to read format! Recommended for anyone who is in the selling business. This literally means everyone in an organization as per VCS !

Indian Art in Detail

Author:        A.L. Dallapiccola

Published:    2007

Publisher:    Mapin Publishing

Hardcover: 144 pages

Readers in India

Having read quite a few good books which explain the art and paintings of the western world, I was on a lookout for such a book on Indian art. And I found this book in the British Library.

The author of the book an Honorary Professor at the University of Edinburgh, is an expert in Indian art and culture.

In the introductory chapter she attempts to define what is Indian  art and concludes that " Expressed through its multiplicity of forms and vibrant colours, Indian art is essentially a celebration of life in all aspects".

The contents are thematically organized in next four chapters viz; Gods, Heroes, Devotion , Courtly and village life . In these chapters the author  describes her selection of about 70 objects from the collection of British Museum. These objects beautifully illustrated in this book (both the complete artifact as well as enlarged details) cover some 2000 years of Indian art. They range from huge stone sculptures to minute ivory carvings, from paintings on paper and cloth to ritual objects. They all prove the mastery of the Indian artists and craftsmen, whether they served the royal court or worked in their native villages.

As I was going through this beautifully produced book, a couple of thoughts struck me about the Indian art in comparison to the Western art.

One, barring few exceptions, none of the Indian artists chose to identify themselves. They selflessly remained anonymous. Whereas we know the names of the artists/architects of almost any piece of Western art.

Secondly, while Indian sculptures are definitely more complex and intricate than their western counterparts, the paintings are rather two dimensional and primitive as compared to the paintings of the western world of the same period. Wonder what is the reason behind it.

There is one mistake in the book, which I hope will get corrected in the next edition. On page 17, it mentions that Sarasvati, goddess of learning, music and the arts as one of Vishnu's consorts as per eastern Indian tradition. This is not correct. As far as I know Sarasvati is reagarded as consort of Brahma not of Vishnu.

Another drawback of this book is that the art objects described are restricted to those which are in British Museum . Describing the objects of art from varied sources could perhaps give a more complete picture of Indian art.

But overall I found this book a very good though rather short introduction to Indian art and I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in getting a exposure to it.

The Goal II - It's Not Luck

Author:       Eliyahu M. Goldratt 
Published:   2005
Publisher:    Productivity & Quality Publishing 
Paperback: 284 pages

This business novel is a sequel to the book The Goal which had introduced the concepts of Theory of Constraints (TOC) and shown its application in a manufacturing scenario.
UniCo, a diversified conglomerate has decided to sell three loss making companies which are under its fold. Alex Rego, the hero of this book's prequel, now the Executive Vice President of UniCO is an has been given the responsibility to turn around these companies to fetch an attractive returns when they are sold.
He applies TOC concepts and techniques to Sales, Marketing, Inventory Control and Business Strategy and comes out with flying colors in this challenging task.
Through this novel, the Goldratt teaches us Thinking Process techniques for solving problems using Current Reality Tree, which incorporates UnDesirable Effects (UDEs) and then a Future Reality Tree. He also teaches us how to make use of a Transition Tree to move from Current Reality to Future Reality.In addition technique of Vendor Managed Inventory is also presented.
 

Very well written and absorbing read. However more diagrams to illustrate step-by-step how the above Trees evolved would have enabled better understanding of the techniques.
A must read for all the  Sales, Marketing and Business Strategy professionals !

Key Takeaways:
1. The three entities for a company's existence 

a) Make money now as well as in the future. 

b) Provide a secure and satisfying environment for employees now as well as in the future.

c) Provide satisfaction to the market now as well as in the future. No business strategy should violate any of the above entities.
 2. You can choose one of the entities as a major goal, but make the other two entities as a necessary conditions to satisfy the goal. All three entities must be satisfied.
3. Never build a strategy based on market forecasts, since their accuracy is not guaranteed.
4. Start with developing a competitive edge through products and services which eliminates the pain-points of the market.
5. Having established the competetive edge move immediately to find ways to segment the market.Enter into segments for which probability of many of the companies dropping off during the same time period is very small.
6. Markets oscillate. During boom time build up cash reserves. During recession,the solution does not lie in lay-offs to cut costs to improve bottom line especially if you have cash reserves. Lay-off is a vicious cycle.
7. Create enough flexibility in your workforce to ensure that every employee is serving several segements of the market.
8. With flexible workforce when a segment is up, you can shift focus away from less lucrative segements. If it goes down, you can shift focus to other segments which you did not fully exploit before. Then there will be rarely a need to lay off people. And all the three entities will be simultaneously satisfied.  (Apparently hardly any company applied this strategy  during the recent recession ! They stuck to the conventional wisdom of laying-off in large numbers !)

The Jahangirnama - Memoirs of Jahangir, Emperor of India

Author:       Jahangir

Published:   1999

Translator:  Wheeler M. Thackston

Publisher:   Oxford University Press, USA

Hardback:  502 pages

Readers in India:

Akbar, the great mogul emperor and his grandson Shah Jahan who commissioned Taj Mahal are very well known.  But how much you know about the Jahangir, Akbar's son , the mogul emperor who reigned in the interim period ?

Welcome to his memoirs the Jahangirnama !

In his memoirs Jahangir gives an honest account (Hopefully an honest account since emperors and kings generally exaggerate or even hide the truth in order to be seen in a better light)  about his life, the battles fought by his army, the political scenarios and intrigues prevailing during his reign.

We come to know him as a person - his emotions, his views, his relationship with his sons, his interests.

We also come to know that he was a real lover of nature and had a scientific temperament with  keen sense of observation.

Several other interesting experiences,facts, things which Jahangir came across are also recorded by him in this memoir (see below for a representative selection).

All these indicate a multi-faceted personality of Jahangir.

However about a quarter of the  memoir is somewhat repetitive and monotonous in parts - descriptions of promotions and honors he bestowed on his nobles; people who came to pay their homage and the gifts they offered; his weighing ceremonies etc.

This book is an excellent down-to-earth translation from Persian. The book's preface is very helpful in setting the context of the memoirs and promotes better understanding of its contents. The preface is well supported by an extensive glossary which explains all the Persian words used in the memoirs.

The book is profusely illustrated with mogul paintings from Jahangir's era which greatly enhance the appreciation of the text. It is a heavy read - not in a figurative sense, but in a literal sense for it is large sized hardback weighing almost two kilograms !

I have been wanting to read a book of this genre for a long time and enjoyed reading most of the portions of this book (except the repetitive parts mentioned above)

The book is expensive though ($65 in 1999, may be more now). I borrowed it from the British Library.

A highly recommended read for all history enthusiasts.

Some Interesting Facts/Extracts  from Jahangirnama

1. Jahangir was instrumental in getting two eminent personalities killed due to some suspicions or misunderstandings and difference of opinions  - One was Abul Fazl, author of Akbarnama and one of the nine jewels in Akbar's court. The other one was Guru Arjan Dev, the fifth Sikh Guru and the compiler of  Adi Granth.

2. "Honesty and dishonestly are not limited to cash and goods; rather to misrepresent one's friends as having talents they do not have and to conceal talents that strangers do have are also dishonest". [As told to Jahangir by Amiru'l-Umara. Nepotsists, please note !]

3. "....I ordered that bhang (narcotics) and buza (beer), being sources of great mischief...." ["buza" - probably the source of the modern day word "booze" !]

4. Hotheadedness of Jahangir - "....as I was just within range for shooting a nilgai, suddenly a groom and two palanquin bearers appeared from nowhere and the nilgai shied and ran away. I was so mad I ordered the groom killed on the spot and the bearers hamstrung, mounted on donkeys and paraded around the camp lest anyone else dare to do such thing."

5. Jahangir was highly addicted to drinks. He describes at length in Jahangirnama how he got into this habit.

6. A Strange Episode with Cranes - "... a eunuch went to the edge of a large lake in the village and captured two baby sarases, a kind of crane. That night, while we were camped there, two screeching adult cranes appeared in the vicinity of the ablutions tent, which had been placed by the lake. Just like a person with a complaint, they come forward, screeching in terror. It occured to me that they must certainly have suffered an injustice, most likely their young had been taken from them. After an investigation, the eunuch who had taken the baby cranes brought them for me to see. When the cranes heard the cries of the babies, they hurled themselves on top of them. Thinking they hadn't been fed, each of the cranes put a morsel of food in the babies' mouths and did all sorts of things to console them. Then, picking the babies up, they spread their wings and headed off, yearning for their nest."

6. Once on during a hunting expedition, one of the scouts tried to kill a quail at Jahangir's command.

"When the blade was placed on its throat, it squirmed out from under the blade and flew away. After that I moved from the boat to the horseback.when suddenly a sparrow was blown by the wind and impaled itself on an arrow shaft one of the scouts ahead of me was holding. It died instantly. I marveled at the twist of the fate. Back there, it protected a quail whose time had not come, and within an instant, saved it from danger, while here it made a swallow whose time had come the prisoner of an arrow of destiny in the hand of destruction. If the blade of the world moves, it will not cut a vein until God so wills."

7. A Scientific Experiment - "Inasmuch as the bravery and valor of lions and tigers are established facts, I wanted to open it up and have a look. After it was cut open it was apparent that unlike other animals, whose gall bladders are outside the liver, lions' and tigers' gall bladders are located inside their livers. It occurs to me that lions' and tigers' courage is due to this fact." [Most probably a wrong conclusion, but we should appreciate Jahangir's curiosity and investigative nature.]

8. Jahangir's concern for Elephants - "Of all animals the elephant particularly likes water and loves to get into it, even during the cold weather of winter. If there is no water available, it will take water from a bag and spray it over its body. It therefore occurred to me that, no matter how much elephants enjoy water and are accustomed to it by nature, surely during the winter they must be affected by the cold water. I therefore ordered the water heated to lukewarm and poured into its trunk. On previous days when it sprayed cold water over itself, the effects of shivering and trembling could be seen, whereas, in contrast, it seemed to enjoy the warm water"

9. Jahangir on Gosain Jadrup, a Hindu holy man whom he visited and conversed on several occasions - "God has bestowed upon him a rare ability and given him a fine understanding, elevated mind, and quick comprehension together with knowledge. He has freed his heart from attachment to material things and turned his back on the world and everything in it, seated in a corner by himself in need of no one and nothing. Of worldly goods he has only a half a yard of old cotton to cover his private parts and a piece of pottery with which to take a sip of water. Winter, summer, and monsoon, he lives naked, head and feet bare, and has taken up residence in a hole in which it is extremely difficult to fit, with a passage so narrow a nursing babe would have trouble getting through.

The following few lines by Hakim Sana'i are appropriate to his condition:

"Luqmann's cell was small and narrow to boot,

Like the throat of a pipe or the breast of a lute.

A foolish one said to the grand old man -

'What house is this - three feet and six span?'

With tears and emotion the sage made reply -

'Ample for him whose task is to die"

10. A Self-Sacrificing Lover - A blacksmith named was madly in love with a woman who spurned him totally. Jahangir summoned them both and tried to persuade her to accept Kalyan, which she refused. Kalyan then said to Jahangir "If I knew for certain that you would give her to me, I'd throw myself off the top of the Shah Burj tower.". Just as a joke Jahangir replied, "Never mind the Shah Burj. If your claim of love has any truth to it, you'll have to throw yourself off the roof of this building. Then I'll give her to you by command."

Hardly Jahangir had uttered these words, Kalyan jumped off the roof and died. Jahangir really regretted having spoken in jest and was dreadfully sorry. He has described this incident in Jahangirnama and has said "A lover who sacrifices himself at that threshold dies of ecstasy using fate as a pretext"

There is another classic translation (published 1909-1914) of Jahangirnama by Rogers and Beveridge which is available free online.

The Story of Art

Author:       E.H. Gombrich

Published:   2006 (Pocket Edition)

Publisher:    Phaidon Press

Paperback: 1044 pages

Readers in India:

Prof. Gombrich takes us through a fascinating journey of art from the cave paintings of stone age to the contemporary art of 1980s. The 500 odd pages of text is well supported by 400 pages of illustrations of paintings, sculpture, and buildings.

The first edition of this book was published way back in 1950 and since then it has been published in sixteen revised editions and also a  pocket edition, which I review here.  It has been the most famous and best selling introduction to art ever written.

In author's own words in the preface of the book 

"The book is intended for all who feel in need of some first orientation in a strange and fascinating field. It may  serve to show newcomers the lie of the land without confusing them with details; to enable them to bring some intelligible order into the wealth of names, periods and styles which crowd the pages of more ambitious works, and so to equip them  for consulting more specialized books. "

"It sets out to place the work it discusses in their historical setting and thus lead towards an understanding of the master's artistic aims."

"The urge to be different may not be the highest or profoundest element of the artist's equipment, but it is rarely lacking altogether. And the appreciation of this intentional difference opens up the easiest approach to the art of the past. I have tried to make this constant change of aims the key of my narrative, and to show how each work is related by imitation or contradiction to what has gone before."

While writing this book, Prof. Gombrich follows three self-imposed rules in order to facilitate better understanding among his readers. The rules are:

1. Not to write about the works which he could not show in the accompanying illustrations. He does not believe in degenerating the text to "lists of names which could mean little or nothing to those who do not know the works in question, and would be superfluous for those who do."

2. To discuss only the real works of art, "..and cut out anything which might merely be interesting as a specimen of taste or fashion."

3. Not to discuss the lesser known works of art, even if some of them were his personal favorites, because  the book "is meant for  those who look for bearings in a new field, and for them the familiar appearance of apparently 'hackneyed' examples may serve as welcome landmarks."

Its popularity over the last six decades has been due to the direct and simple manner it is written, and also because of author's superb narration. Really, you feel you are reading a nice long, continuous and coherent  epic rather than an academic treatise on art.  

A few minor drawbacks purely from my perspective.

The last chapter loses some coherency with rest of the book. Probably because it is actually an add-on to the original first edition or maybe because it deals mainly with contemporary art for which I am yet to develop a complete appreciation.

The book should be titled "The Story of Western Art", since it hardly discusses the art of the eastern world. The author's son Richard Gombrich is an Indologist and a scholar of Buddhist studies. I really look forward to a book by him on the Eastern Art on the similar lines, assuming he possesses the excellent narrative skills of his father.

The cover page design of the pocket edition which I read is rather drab and academic looking. Since this book is intended to attract lay readers to the fascinating world of art, a better cover design - may be a collage of some of the master pieces- would have been more apt.

To sum up this is undoubtedly the best book I have read on art over the last two decades. It is one of the excellent examples of customer-centricity, where a learned academician has written a highly understandable, lucid and delightful book for the art newbies.

I would highly recommend this book to readers of all ages who want to develop a basic appreciation of art.

  

Contents 

Preface

Introduction - On art and artists

1. Strange Beginnings - Prehistoric and primitive peoples; Ancient America

2. Art for Eternity - Egypt, Mesopotamia, Crete

3. The Great Awakening - Greece, seventh to fifth century BC

4. The Realm of Beauty - Greece and the Greek world, fourth century BC to first century AD

5. World Conquerors - Romans, Buddhists, Jews and Christians, first to fourth century AD

6. A Parting of Ways - Rome and Byzantium, fifth to thirteenth century

7. Looking Eastwards - Islam, China, second to thirteenth century

8. Western Art in the Melting Pot - Europe, sixth to eleventh century

9. The Church Militant - The twelfth century

10. The Church Triumphant - The thirteenth century

11. Courtiers and Burghers - The fourteenth century

12. The Conquest of Reality - The early fifteenth century

13. Tradition and Innovation: I - The later fifteenth century in Italy

14. Tradition and Innovation: II - The fifteenth century in the North

15. Harmony Attained - Tuscany and Rome, early sixteenth century

16. Light and Color - Venice and northern Italy, early sixteenth century

17. The New Learning Spreads - Germany and the Netherlands, early sixteenth century

18. A Crisis of Art - Europe, later sixteenth century

19. Vision and Visions - Catholic Europe, first half of the seventeenth century

20. The Mirror of Nature - Holland, seventeenth century

21. Power and Glory: I - Italy, later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

22. Power and Glory: II - France, Germany and Austria, late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries

23. The Age of Reason - England and France, eighteenth century

24. The Break in Tradition - England, America and France, late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries

25. Permanent Revolution - The nineteenth century

26. In Search of New Standards - The late nineteenth century

27. Experimental Art - The first half of the twentieth century

28. A Story without End - The triumph of Modernism; Another turning of the tide; The changing past

Artists Featured

Limbourg Brothers, Brunelleschi, Masaccio, Donatello, van Eyck, Ghiberti, Fra Angelico, Uccello, Mantegna, Piero della Francesca, Botticelli, van der Weyden, Verrochio, Leonardo da Vinci, Ghirlandaio, Michelangelo, Raphael, Bellini, Titian, Corregio, Du:rer, Gru:newalde, Cranach, Bosch, Parmigianino, Tintoretto, El Greco, Holbein, Hilliard, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Carraci,  Caravaggio,  Poussin, Lorrain, Rubens, van Dyck, Velazquez, Hals,Rembrandt, Ruisdael, Vermeer, Tiepolo, Watteau, Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Fragonard, Copley, David, Goya, Turner, Constable, Ingres, Delacroix, Courbet, Rossetti, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Pissaro, Degas, Rodin, Whistler, Cezanne, Seurat, van Gogh, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Munch, Kandinsky, Picasso, Klee, Mondrian, Rousseau, Chagall, Dali, Pollock, Kline,Hockney.

The House of Blue Mangoes

Author:       David Davidar
Published:   2002
Publisher:    Penguin Books India
Paperback: 432 pages
 
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The saga of Dorai family spanning over 3 generations during the last 5 decades of British Raj (1899-1947),  set in a fictitious district in Madras Presidency (now the state of Tamil Nadu plus some regions now in Kerala, Karnataka & Andhra) . The scene of  India's struggle for freedom plays in the background, subtly touching  the lives of the main characters.
The book is in three parts. The first part is about Solomon Dorai, a strict but just and benevolent headman of the village Chevathar. The second part is about his son Daniel Dorai who becomes a renowned physician and establishes a new family settlement Doraipuram near their ancestral village Chevathar. Kannan, the son of Daniel Dorai , a successful manager of a Tea Estate owned by an Englishman in Pulimed, is the main protogonist in part three. He becomes a "pucca brown-sahib". But once he realizes that Englishmen will never consider him their equal, he resigns and returns back to his roots in Chevathar.
The plot is simple with no dramatic thrills or turn-arounds. Issues described in the story through excellently etched characters are very realistic  - caste wars, father-son disagreements, family politics, love marriage breakup etc.

There are several British characters - Father Ashworth, Chris Cooke, Harrison who  play a very significant roles in the the lives of Solomon Dorai, Daniel Dorai & Kannan respectively. However I cannot help feeling that they are mainly introduced with the global readership in view.

The narration is very vivid and holds your attention throughout the book.
A very good book  for light reading, though in my opinion the rave reviews from all over the world quoted in the back cover and first few pages of the book are somewhat exaggerated.

A few impressive extracts from the book:

1.  "At the moment of his triumph, he had escaped the world, the hundreds of little things we say and do to ourselves bind us down, make us helpless little worms, who on their deathbeds only remember and lament what they always wanted to do, but never had the courage for. Think about it, anna. What a waste of life, no matter how pitiful or earnest or triumphant it has been. Do you really want to die, and in your last moment go into the dark thinking only of what might have been".

2.  As Father Ashworth put the pages in order, he read what he had written -  At the heart of every religion in the world  is the divine mystery. 
The problem that the teachers who have contributed to the evolution of each faith have always been confronted with can be simply stated:
How to plumb the divine mystery, describe it, explain it to themselves and the followers of the faith ? It is a problem almost without solution, for how do you describe God ? There are no facts that can adequately explain the Supreme Reality; none but the greatest seers are granted the intuition to experience the Divine.
As a result, each religion has evolved a host of symbols and myths and conventions and dogma, to make its central mystery better understood. Over the centuries, these have obscured the central mystery to the impoverishment of faith. And the priestly class has only itself to blame for obscuring and misinterpreting the Truth, perverting religion for its own selfish ends, setting brother against brother, saint against saint, dogma against dogma. Is Krishna's memorable message to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra any less important than Christ's Sermon on the Mount or the Buddha's explication of the Eightfold Path? No, a thousand times no ! Men of vision of all faiths need to explain to their followers that the goal of every religion is same - to achieve the transcendent state, experience the one true Reality, understand fully the eternal Truth..."

3. As she prepared the meal that evening, a memory of Aaron insinuated itself into Charity's sense of well-being. Instantly her mood grew less buoyant. Where was her beautiful boy, she wondered. What was he doing now?  She shook off her gloomy foreboding. Aaron will be all right; God is watching over him, and one day he will return. As she bent to light the fire she gave thanks for her perfect day. Even the shadow cast by Aaron had its place in it: too much happiness wasn't good for you; it was bound to be followed by great sorrow, as the world tried to keep the balance.

4. "It's ironic, I kept running away from the place, but it grew to be most important thing in my life....." ........."Isn't it curious how we always realize the important things when it's too late? Perhaps that's His way of reminding us how useless and significant we really are".

5.  'Watch how you speak to me, you young whippersnapper. Do you mean to tell me that you haven't spent your working life fitting into a straitjacket devised by someone else? You look like a fellow who doesn't put up with nonsense, so it must have been even more of a trial. Look at you, enunciating your words carefully, polishing your English manners, playing right into the hands of those who seek to keep you down. Why the hell should you not say Les-ester or Wor-sester or Chol-mon-de-ley when not one Englishman of my acquaintance can pronounce an Indian name correctly? And why should you not spit in public when the honking of a white man into his handkerchief would drown out a tiger's roar? And do you really think the English oak is sturdier than the banyan and the thrush superior to bulbul? And that the lotus is inferior to the rose? Is Tamil less than English? Why don't these things make you angry?' [ This is Harrison a bitter Englishman berating Kannan for holding Englishmen with high regard. This could also serve as a reproach to the people who blindly ape the west and think anything American or European is better than Indian]

6. 'But is that what you really want to do? I know things have been rough around here but you are a good planter, Cannon. You could have an excellent career on the estates.'
'I thought so too, sir, but sometimes you keep putting off the inevitable, knowing all the while that the decision has already been taken a long time ago, often without any conscious thought. It's always been there, you've just taken a few twists and turns in the road before you arrive at it.'
'Now you've lost me, with all this talk of destiny. What do you chaps call it, karma?'
'Not bad at all, sir', Kannan said with a smile.
'You've never seemed more Indian to me than you did just now,' Michael said.
'But that's the whole point, sir. I am Indian, and I expect we just forgot that for a while.'