Branding Bakasura for Corporate Gods

 

Devdutt Pattanaik's commendable body of work on the contemporary relevance of Indian mythology is a formidable one which has made the vast universe of Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, and Itihasas more accessible to those seeking to explore the fathomless depths without being overwhelmed. He has written over 50 books and is a prolific columnist and orator, in addition to being a corporate culture consultant. His latest book - Escape the Bakasura Trap: Let Contentment Fuel Your Growth purports to take a closer look at the consumerist culture we are currently entrapped in weighing it against contentment which is more conducive to enabling personal growth and liberation from the relentless hunger, fear and insecurity that drives most of us. Drawing on Bhima's slaying of the perpetually hungry demon, Bakasura, Pattanaik seeks to reveal to the reader the path first revealed by Hanuman to his half - brother in order to escape the coils of entanglement to illusory pleasure which accrues karmic debt ensuring that the soul is caught in the endless cycle of birth and rebirth, perpetually thwarted from achieving salvation. 

The aim of the book is a lofty one but one can't help but agree with Pattanaik's detractors who have accused him of oversimplifying complex philosophy embodied by the epics, stripping it of nuance and providing readers with a superficial narrative, lacking in depth, rich complexity and profound insights. He urges the reader to 'Approach this book with curiosity not combat' clearly anticipating criticism along these lines and making a perfunctory and ineffective effort to deflect it. Perusing the book makes for a disconcerting experience, as Pattanaik hastily sketches out his purpose and proceeds to string together a whole lot of corporate buzzwords with scant regard for anything close to coherence. His thoughts and ideas bordering on the idiosyncratic are haphazardly cobbled together, which begs the question as to whether his editorial team was asleep at the wheel or outsourced the job to AI, resulting in an output that is riddled with glitches and gaffes. 

Sample this: 'All humans need food, clothing, and shelter. But only Muslims need mosques and the Japanese need sushi. And all of us have that one hunger that is unique to us, and for which we seek no companion.'  One is forced to stop and ponder on the senselessness of such heedless statements carelessly designed to provoke. Does Pattanaik mean to assert that Hindus, Christians and followers of other religions don't need temples, churches, and places of worship? Outside the polarizing world of social media don't tourists feel the need to visit churches, Buddhist stupas, synagogues and temples for assorted purposes ranging from religious awe, interest in historical monuments to arresting Instagram backdrops? Doesn't sushi count as food which not only the Japanese but people from every part of the globe consume with varying levels of relish? Where exactly is he going with this and the numerous other non sequiturs that went into the making of this book? 

There is a sprinkling of stories and characters from Puranic lore but there is very little meat on the bare bones of this book. It appears to be mostly a tiresome exercise in generating content for the conveyor belt of corporate consumerism while claiming to be all about escaping it. The irony seems to be lost on the author who ought to have known better than to make this attempt to commodify myth and cater to crass commercialism. As he himself puts it, 'We use stories to increase the value of goods and services of the same measure. We call it branding.' The Corporate Gods will be pleased. 

This book review was originally published in TNIE Magazine