Authors Bhavana Roy and Amish Tripathi in conversation with Journalist Aditi Bhimjiyanion Balancing Modern Life & Spiritual Wisdom
Aditi Bhimjiyani: So I know both of you grew up in a family entrenched in mythology, spirituality, dharma, religion, all with distinctively interesting opinions. I suppose that learnings and wisdom from the Gita were intrinsic to these conversations. What were some of your dinner table conversations like? Can you highlight some key lessons you may have imbibed as a family while growing up? Things that have held you in good stead even today.
Amish Tripathi: I think among the key things, at least that’s what I want to speak of, and then you can add, Didi, our family, we come from a relatively humble background. Our parents were actually educated in the Hindi medium. We were the first generation to be educated in English. Our parents sent us to schools and colleges that were way beyond their income and social class. Their only investment in life was actually the four of us siblings. They had ambitions for us; they wanted us to learn everything that would make us successful in the world.
I remember Ma had actually told us once, “Hum log tumhe aise pathshala mein bhej rahe hain taaki tum angrezi walon ke samne kabhi sehmoge nahi.” But at the same time, she never hid the sacrifices Mum and Dad were making for us. But she insisted that at home, “Bharatiya hoga.” Outside, you are learning to compete with the world, but at home, we will speak in Hindi. That’s why we are very comfortable in Hindi. We will learn our traditions, we will learn our culture, we will learn our scriptures. So, in a sense, we were very lucky that we had the best of both worlds. We went to schools such as Lawrence; I went to Lawrence, my twin brother Ashish and I went to Lawrence School, Ooty. Didi and Dada were in Wynberg-Allen, in Mussoorie. Then all four of us went to Cathedral and John Connon School. Any Cathedralites here? Yeah, oh, Cathedral rocks. Any Palmer House guys here? Oh, come on, just one? It was Cork House five years in a row when Ashish and I were there. We went to Cathedral School, she went to Sophia’s, Dada, Ashish, and I were in St. Xavier’s.
We went to the absolute top colleges, but at home, we were deeply immersed in our scriptures and traditions. We would discuss the Ram Charit Manas, we would discuss the Shaivite Puranas. I think that balance is actually what made us well-rounded. There’s also another thing on how my mother believed that all four of us should be brought up, but that, maybe I’ll say something later—the discipline.
Bhavana Roy: The dinner table conversations you mentioned—I’ll go a generation back. Our grandfather, Pandit Babulal Tripathi, was a Pandit in Banaras Hindu University. He was the Head of the Department of Maths and Physics and was very learned in our Puranas and our Shastras. He exposed us to akhand Ramayan paaths at home. Our eldest Bua, Dr. Bua, we called her because, well, she did her MBBS almost pre-independence.
Amish: In her five years of medical college, Dr. Bua, Annapurna Bua, was the only woman in her five years of medical college. Everyone else was male out there. My grandfather believed in education. He had five daughters, three sons. U.P yaar — big families ! He educated all of them.
Bhavana Roy: And, to add to the Dr. Bua thing, she did her MBBS five years in f
ull ghunghat. Yeah. So, Dr. Bua, in our childhood, would come over to our grandparents’ house and have all of us—children, my cousins, all of us—enact stories from the Mahabharata and Ramayana. She would dress us all up: “So I’m Arjun, and he is Krishna,” and whatever, and we would enact these things. The chachas and the buas would watch the performances, and then we would have discussions later on about the lessons that you can derive.
Dinner table conversations at home with our parents—my father was really special. Which father isn’t? Every father is special, but so was ours, right? And he had the most bewildering dinner table conversations. To begin with, it was a rule: the family ate together. There was no television at dinner time. There was no “Mummy kha rahi hai, bache kidhar toh kha rahe hai.” We all ate together, and Dad would ask the most, frankly, bizarre, bewildering questions when we were young. So at the dinner table, he would ask us, “Are relationships driven by power or love?” Such questions! My chacha’s children, Ashish and Aparna, would come over, and he would ask my cousin Ashish (Jr.), my chacha’s son—also named Ashish. And he would ask Ashish Jr., “If you and Amish are competing in a race, and you beat Amish, do you think it will make me happy or not happy?” And then he would move on to, “Do you think Dhritarashtra loved his brother’s children?” You know, and we would have such discussions. So it was very eclectic, also very fun. And it’s almost as if many of those lessons seeped in, and we understand them more deeply in hindsight.
Amish Tripathi: Our family had a lot of blessings from Goddess Saraswati. Goddess Lakshmi used to kind of stay away. Now there are many more blessings of Goddess Lakshmi, but Goddess Saraswati’s blessings have probably come down compared to our grandparents and our parents.
Aditi Bhimjiyani: So actually, this is a good precursor to my next question. I wanted to add to the first one. In our social and cultural setting, none of us are islands. We are deeply entrenched in our families. Family wedding, at home, family trip, business—we are all together. We deal with family and family dynamics on a daily basis, both good and bad. Too much love, too little love, envy, rivalry. You all grew up in a big, busy family. The Mahabharata is about family in a way. Is there anything that you feel you might have learned or even unlearned from the epics while growing up when it comes to family? I think some of the questions you said your grandparents and your father asked—what were the answers?
Bhavana Roy: As I said, you know, probably many of the understandings sort of seep in, in hindsight when you’re asked when your Tauji or my father is asking his younger brother’s child, he must have been seven or eight at the time, that if you and Amish compete and you win the race, do you think that will make me happy or will I feel a tinge in my heart? He’s teaching some very seminal lessons, you know, as to what is love. Ashish Jr’s reply was very prompt. Actually, Ashish and Aparna often used to really enjoy their visits. They used to live in Dubai and he was our rich Chacha. He had done well in life. And, you know, they would really enjoy their trip, especially to our home because, and to this day, they say, “Oh, the genius Tauji, we learnt so much from her, from him.” Asking, Ashish Jr had instantly responded, “Oh, I think Tauji, you’ll be thrilled to bits.”
And then he would move on from there and discuss love. You know, what is love? Is love attachment? Is love dominance? Or is it a connection, a bond? Is it win-win or win-lose? Oftentimes, even as adults, we don’t ask ourselves about family dynamics. Family especially is, I think, it’s, families are designed to grow. An opportunity for us to grow consciously. Because oftentimes, of course, khoon mein hai. We all love our family. But what is this love? You know, is love defined by power or dominance or this competition? Or is it, you know, the urge to build a network of relationships with the non-negotiables in your life? Or is it the tribe or is it the jungle in which you live life based on transactions, negotiations? Idhar mujhe mila kya, maine diya kya?
So, we’re getting questions. And our epics are so designed, you know, for us to examine these things and try and live a more conscious life.
Amish Tripathi: I think I’ll answer this from three levels. One was a conversation with Dad on the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. You and Dada weren’t there at that time. I think you were in Wynberg-Allen. Just Ashish and I had that conversation. And he was speaking of birth families and he says, one of the fundamental ways that you can see the Ramayana and Mahabharata differently is that Ramayana is a birth family sticking together through everything to fight outsiders. Ram, Bharat, Lakshmana and Shatrughna stick together through everything.
Whereas the Mahabharata, the family itself is dysfunctional and starts hating each other and very often they like outsiders more than their family. And he says the lesson is different in both. And it’s not that at the end of it, Ramayana, everyone had a happily ever after. Lord Ram and Sita did break up and Sita Ma lived alone. So did Lord Ram. Lord Ram did a Jalsamadhi at the end of the Ramayana. I don’t think it was shown in the television serial, but it’s there in the Ramayana. There’s a Ghat in Ayodhya called Guptar Ghat. Jalsamadhi is essentially you walk into the river and you give up your body that way. And in Guptar Ghat in Ayodhya, the locals say the last word he whispered as he went into the waters was “Sita.” Both of them, he said in a weird way, both were unhappy.
What is the lesson you can draw on what makes a family work and what makes a family dysfunctional? And if a family is dysfunctional, you are easy prey for outsiders. That’s one lesson.
Second lesson, one of the things our father was extremely strict about is the primacy of the mother. I’ve been slapped only twice by my dad. Once I didn’t deserve it. But once, Ashish and I, we both were slapped and we did deserve it. And we emerged, I think, as better human beings because of that, because we tried to. I won’t go into the full thing. We tried to play some game between. Dad was always the spoiling one. Ma was the strict one. She’d said no for something. Dad came later. We asked him. He said yes. So we ran off to play. When we came back, he was livid that if your mother said no, how dare you even ask me? And he slapped the both of us. Because his thing was it’s the mother who builds your character. “Charitra nirmaan Maa se hota hai,” at the beginning. A father can teach many other things. But the core characters were built by the mother. And many things get instilled actually at a young age where then they almost become muscle memory. So our Ma was extremely strict, under five years of age, she was always around. Her belief was that a mother should be around all the time so that there’s no insecurity. Many of us have this attention-seeking behaviour. It actually comes from insecurities as a child. And if you have insecurities, others can smell it, especially sales guys. They can smell it and they’ll use it. But if you don’t have that from a young age, no one can exploit you because you have no insecurities. What do you want to do? There’s nothing to exploit. But she was very strict after that. And one of her key rules, four of us were not allowed to fight. I know it sounds strange. We were not allowed to fight. If we ever got into a fight, we had to stand next to each other and kiss each other on the cheeks 100 times, I swear. And we’d start laughing by the 30th or 40th. And she said the entire thing is the four of you have to stick together like this because the world is not easy. And why the hell should the world make it easy for you? The world doesn’t care about you at all.
There has to be some people and actually you don’t need more than five or ten people who you will die for without a second thought, who will die for you without a second thought. And that, the four of us, and luckily for us, our spouses also kind of got into that, which gives us so much strength. We passed through a difficult personal phase for six, seven years. We didn’t have to depend on psychologists or, you know, anyone else. And we went through a lot of personal tragedy. But because the family is strong, and that’s Ma’s upbringing, that gives us the strength to handle whatever there is to handle.
And the last thing, very quickly, I’ll just tell you, my Ma’s theory on upbringing. She’d read it in Chanakya Niti. Those who are mothers and fathers should check that out. Chanakya had suggested a standard way on which children should be brought up. First five years, drown them with love. As to the point I made earlier, they have no insecurities then. Because they are not seeking attention. They are not crying to seek attention. They are crying because there is a problem. You solve that problem, they’ll stop crying. They’re not crying to seek attention. Then from age five to age 15, absolute strict discipline. That’s when you toughen them up. That they can handle anything in life. No nakhras were allowed. We had to eat whatever was on the table. What the hell do you mean you came number two? It’s unacceptable. You have to be number one. She was extremely strict. There was once Didi and I, we had done a, and she should have known better. She was eight years older. We had done natak about eating karela on the table. It wasn’t conscious, but I was young in my defence. I just pushed the plate away slightly. Ma was so livid for one week, especially for Didi and me. For lunch and dinner, karela used to be made. For lunch and dinner. And she said, you can go hungry. Or you can eat this. Your choice. And now, we were shooting in Prayagraj for the Kumbh Mela -you know, khana jo bhi mil raha tha; I can get by on anything, because Ma instilled that discipline. And the third thing, after age 15, become a friend. Because character jo ban na tha woh ban gaya. Now you cannot do anything. So become a friend so that the children count on you for advice, rather than some random, Vikram Mishra, a friend of yours, who’s your school friend, who’s giving you some random advice, who you make life-changing decisions on, it’s better to speak to your parents and get some sensible advice. That’s how she brought the four of us up. We idolise our mother.
Aditi Bhimjiyani: That’s amazing. So just this conversation you had, you made a very interesting observation that whether it was the Mahabharata or the Ramayana, there is always unhappiness. No life is without strife, pain or suffering. I think, in one of your interviews, Amish, you had said that Rama and Ravana both suffered in their own ways, but it was how they reacted that made the difference. Ravana got belligerent, vengeful, and Ram got more noble and he said, I think that I won’t stop giving to others what I couldn’t receive. Is this attitude adaptable in daily life? I mean, we are only human, but this thought of rising above is very empowering and the Gita does teach you ultimately that you are bigger than your pains and your confusions. Do you have a tool, something that we can adapt to?
Bhavana Roy: Lessons from the Gita. To begin with, it’s not just the Gita, because there’s a library of scriptures out there. In fact, even the Gita is not the only Gita. There are over 50 or 60 Gitas, we do not know it. We have almost 50, 60 Gitas, other Gitas in the Mahabharata itself. And then there are standalone Gitas, there are Gitas in the Puranas, there are Gitas from the Ramayana. You know, there is, Aditi, you’ve written a book, what was that? Pregnancy, Lessons from Kareena on Pregnancy. Do you know we have a Gita called the Garbha Gita, you know, which is completely on pregnancy and child-rearing. In fact, it goes down to the detail of, if I may be slightly explicit, the mind states that the man and the woman should be in when they are conceiving the child, because that too will affect the mind of the child. I think Dr. Batra, you have written something on this, in the same lines. So there’s the Garbha Gita, there is the Kama Gita, you know, the Gita of desire. That was taught by Sri Krishna to Yudhishthira in the Mahabharata itself. The optimal relationship with desire should be. There’s the Anu Gita, which is, you must tell…
Amish Tripathi: That is the most interesting. This is Anu Gita in the Mahabharata. The Ashwamedha Yajna of Yudhishthira is over, and Arjun tells Lord Krishna, all that you taught, because the Bhagavad Gita had been spoken earlier, right, before the war, all that you taught me about the Bhagavad Gita, I have forgotten. Excuse me, can you repeat, please? And Lord Krishna was away. But Lord Krishna did repeat, and He said that I myself was in a state of yoga, I told you the Gita, and you are either foolish or you were not paying attention. But I will tell you once again. This is the Anu Gita. This is the most hilarious – Can you repeat, please?
Bhavana Roy: And you know the Gita has 700 shlokas and the Anu Gita at the end of the Mahabharata is supposed to be the summary of the Bhagavad Gita, and in the bewildering ways of our way of life, the summary is longer than the original which is over 1000 shlokas. So there’s a bhandar out there. And life lessons from the Gita—I mean, you can derive lessons on your relationship with desire. You know, desires being met lead to greed, desires not being met lead to anger. Your relationship with Karma. What is Karma? You know the famous 2.47—Karmanye Vadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana, Ma Karma Phala Hetur Bhur Ma Te Sangostu Akarmani! The second line of the shloka is much more important because what it says is do not get attached to inaction. So oftentimes 2.47 is called fatalistic. But it isn’t if you read the entire shloka, and it’s not about getting attached to inaction. What is Karma? Karma is not merely action that is observable to others—my thoughts are action. My emotions are action. I’m speaking to you right now and I may appear calm but if my insides are in a state of turbulence, that too is my Karma. It is not visible to you at all but that too is my Karma. So what is Karma? The Gita teaches us about our relationship with death. In modern times we are almost fearful of discussing death. But the Gita teaches us some very seminal lessons in how to approach your last moment. All of us will die, hopefully not today. But how do we approach impending death and how do we deal with grief? So these are very practical lessons. What is Dharma? Your favourite shloka, 3.35?
Amish Tripathi: Shreya Swadharma. There is this lovely shloka. Shreya Swadharma Viguna Hah Paradharma Swanushtitha. That is better if I do my own Swadharma, even if I am making mistakes while doing it, rather than doing someone else’s Swadharma, even if I do it perfectly. I have to live what my life is meant to be, not someone else’s life. And I find that very beautiful. The key thing though is, we have to decide for ourselves what our Swadharma is, not allow others to tell us. Because then actually we are living someone else’s life. We will decide what works for us and then live with the consequences, positive or negative. I think another thing is actually grief and Gautama Buddha had said, the first of his four noble truths, that grief is the fundamental reality of the universe. Everyone experiences grief, everyone. Anyone wants to raise their hand, that life has always been a bed of roses, no pain, no sadness ever, all of us experience it, every single one, no one escapes it.
Life is defined not by what happens to you, but by how you react to what happens to you. Lord Rama reacted to that grief and suffering differently. Ravana reacted to that grief and suffering differently. The world hurts me, I will freaking burn everything down. You think you are lashing out, actually you are just hurting yourself. That doesn’t mean that you become a doormat either. Our tradition has never suggested extremism of any kind. Don’t be lashing out all the time, don’t become a doormat either. How do you stay balanced? And once again, I know it sounds theoretical but the importance of family in making that work. Often when the world is just, there is too much to bear. Like I said, we actually went through such a terrible period and we are a very close-knit family. So the career was going for everyone, better and better. But we suffered a lot of tragedies in our families which hurt us a great deal. But if you have a strong family, you can actually get through it.
So advice to everyone, hold it close. And you should have a difference between working and hierarchy within the family, right? Working wherever you are, that doesn’t matter. Within the family, at least our family believes this and I believe there is a value to hierarchy. She is my Didi. I might joke around but she is older, which means I will listen to her. And Ma put this down for all of us. My twin brother, Ashish, I had to call him Bhaiya till Cathedral School because he was 12 minutes elder. And there was a time when he said please stop because he would get teased in school. And I had come and I told Ma, why do I have to keep calling him Bhaiya? It’s only 12 minutes and my Ma had made me sit down and held my nose and covered my mouth. And when I started, she said, what happened? You can’t hold it, but it’s been only one minute. Twelve minutes is nothing, right? So till you both are okay, you have to call him Bhaiya. And there is a value to that as well.
It doesn’t matter what you are outside. Within the family, honour that. It actually leads to better bonds. That’s what I believe. You have to show, I don’t buy this Western thing that my father is an old man and none of us had, you know, referred to your father as an old man. And you can’t talk like that. Touch the feet of the elders. It actually makes your family stable and gives you the ability to handle grief. Ravana’s family was not stable, so he couldn’t handle grief.
Aditi Bhimjiyani: The Gita is not a religious text. It is a lesson in life, as you both have maintained. Is there any one imminently implementable principle that you think we can go home with today? Not lofty, not idealistic. We’re all human. But you think there’s some daily living lesson that you can share?
Amish Tripathi: Actually, more than the Gita, and Gita, we’ve discussed some of the stuff already, Shreya Swadharma and Karmani Vadekar Sree, but there is this lovely Sanskrit Mahavakya, Ati Sarvatra Varjayet, extremism of any kind should be avoided. So, yes, earn well, work hard, earn money, don’t get obsessed by it. But don’t swing on the other extreme where there is nobility in poverty, that’s also nonsense, right? Be balanced. We are ordinary, you know, citizens. We have no right to take the law into our own hands. We have no right to be violent. But, yes, I’m a non-violent guy, but someone comes and tries to push my wife. Yes, I will get violent. Again, balance. Don’t swing to any extreme. You can love and be proud of your religion. Don’t hate another religion. You can love and be proud of your country. Don’t hate another country. This concept of balance, and that I think to most Indians actually comes almost instinctively. But it’s never kind of spoken of front and centre as much. The value of balance. Don’t swing to any extreme. Any kind of extremism should be avoided.
Bhavana Roy: Balance, yes, balance is extremely important, but balance, this urge towards balance, I think, is greatly under duress in today’s times of social media. And we are facing AI now. Should we be scared? After all, social media in its very algorithm is inbuilt in the movement towards polarities. We are seeing it in the whole world. Actually, I do feel that the extremeties and the polarity that we live in, social media is very fundamentally responsible for it, and the algorithm is designed to push you towards the extreme. I read a book by a British author, Douglas Murray, The Madness of Crowds, in which he discussed social media, and during the time when it was Twitter, not X. One of the women tweeted that, you know, “Men should be killed, all men are evil.” And this was years back, and that tweet had gone viral. In an event like this, she was present, and he said to her, “Why did you say that?” You know, “Kill all men?” She said, “Well, you know, I just wanted to bring focus towards women’s issues. And had I just tweeted ‘Be nice to women,’ it wouldn’t have gone viral, you know, so I had to say ‘Kill all men,’ you see.” So Twitter, and now X, in its design, is pushing you towards the extremes. What do we do? Do we get scared of these things? You know, once upon a time, Thomas Edison discovered the light bulb. And, you know, that discovery played havoc with our biorhythm, you know, our very biology. Melatonin, HGH were designed through actual millennia; they had evolved to live in consonance with the light of the sun, you know. So the sun goes down, your melatonin production begins, you fall asleep, and then HGH happens later on in the night, and you’re asleep, your regeneration, growth, and repair work is happening in your body. And then Thomas Edison goes and creates a light bulb. And we had melatonin tablets. Now we need melatonin tablets and sublinguals. So, and he confused our inner biology, we are still grappling with it, right?
I’m sure we human beings are smart as we are also wise occasionally. We’ll find our way to navigate through this new forest of social media, as well as AI. But we’ve got to; it’s going to affect us as seminally as did the light bulb.
Aditi Bhimjiyani: That’s an important thing I wanted you to address really quickly. I think stress, mental health, this hyper-connectedness, and social isolation, they’re all keywords of 2025. Do you have a personal takeaway on dealing with just this—stress, your mind?
Amish Tripathi: Look, I believe some bit of stress is actually good. Muscles only grow against resistance. Your mind also grows when it’s subjected to a bit of stress. Because one way to avoid stress is to be drugged out all the time. That’s not a good idea. So a bit of stress is actually not bad. It’s excess stress which causes a problem. How do you manage that? In the work that you do, there are some work situations which are challenging. Enjoy that. Some work situations which are toxic? Then get away from it. The value of actually just routine. Sleep on time. Wake up on time. Dr. Batra keeps speaking about that. Eat on time. Eat only between sunrise and sunset. And that’s the Ayurvedic way—Suryodaya to Suryasth. But we won’t listen to our ancestors saying it; when a Western guy comes and says, “Intermittent fasting. Good idea.” It’s basically the same thing. But intermittent fasting aligns to the circadian rhythm. Meditation and dhyana is not actually about the mantras that you do. It’s that mantra essentially just helps you focus. A key insight I had learned from Shri Shri Ravi Shankar Ashram—Gurudev had told me that the problem with your body is it doesn’t want to work. And the problem with your mind is it doesn’t want to rest. And what you have to do is try and figure out how to do the opposite. Get your body to work—exercise, walk, do physical activity. And get your mind to rest, at least sometimes. And the entire point of meditation focusing on a mantra is basically your mind just calms down. It does nothing. Even if you can do that, just for a minute, it gets the stress out.
Bhavana Roy: Mind. I’ll go towards the Shastras of it. What is the mind? Swami Mukundanandaji has divided the mind into four sections. There is the mana, the buddhi, chitta, and ahankar. Mana is our thoughts, our emotions, our likes and dislikes. Chitta is the non-conscious part. It’s our memory bank. And the memory bank goes back in evolution to the time we were probably crocodiles, right, before Homo sapiens came. That’s the memory bank. The reptilian brain is from the crocodile. And so chitta is the memory bank, the non-conscious memory, unconscious memory. Then there is ahankar, the ‘I’-ness, the sense of identity, me. And then there is buddhi, which is the aspect of our mind that analyses, that discriminates, that gives you perspective, discerns. The Gita, Chapter 6, Verses 5 and 6 talk about the mind and they talk about the mind being either an enemy or a friend. You know the mind can be your friend, the mind can be your enemy, and the mind becomes your friend when you master your mind. But the thing is—what is mastering the mind? You know what is the best kind of master? Does the master bully? And I would say in these, buddhi I would imagine is the master of mana, chitta, and ahankar. Does the master bully, does the master suppress, does the master unsee and unhear? No, the master, the best master is one who is kind, who sees, hears but sets the boundaries, you know. And that is the job I think of not only buddhi but also other tools because I don’t think thinking is a problem. I think overthinking is a problem. And these days we are caught in thought loops, can’t sleep at night because the mind will not stop, and social media is adding to it, you know, this thing is just going on and on and on. And how do you stop overthinking? Buddhi, yes, but I would suggest two other tools because we have to also incorporate non-verbal tools. We depend too much on words. Buddhi, yes, find the space to let out what you’re feeling, safe spaces where you can express, where you can talk. But the two other tools I would suggest which have worked very powerfully for me when the storm hit my life and I lost my husband is music. If we are overthinking, it’s probably because we are under-feeling, and emotions have, you know, the last 500 years we’ve been living in the age of reason and thought and words and we have downgraded the emotions. Because emotions are in your body, thoughts are in your head, and you cannot deal with or channelise or figure out emotions only with words. Because you have to channel it, you have to feel your way through it. How do you do it? And you do it with music. Fabulous tools through which you can channel emotions. Listen to Swan Lake, the soulful Swan Lake of Tchaikovsky, and in solitude, you’ll find tears streaming down your eyes. Don’t try and figure it out. Let words go and let it just seep. And that brings me to the other tool, which is crying. You know, nature very thoughtfully has given us the lacrimal glands, to men too, not just women. And they have a purpose, right? And it’s a very powerful purpose. You know, when we cry through the tears, there are doctors here, your cortisol, which is the stress hormone, actually literally drains out. You know, when you cry, cortisol is drained, oxytocin gets triggered, endorphins get triggered. They are pain relievers. You feel relief. And you don’t have to cry all over the place, you know. Find your safe spaces or even cry in solitude. Listen to music and cry. And you know, what would be most beautiful? Relationships we have talked about are so important to navigate life. I think it would be beautiful, and I’m saying this to the women in the audience, it would be beautiful if you can provide a safe space for the men in your life to cry. That’s lovely. Thank you. We’re out of time. On that note. Thank you.
ROTARIANS ASK
So, I have to just quickly mention his brother, Ashish. He is following in his father’s footsteps and has set up a lab, SAR Laboratories, which is one of the pioneering institutes in the world to detect cancer.
So, I have done my, some mental manthan and debris has come out rather than nectar. Countries which have hoary civilisations are unable to deal with modernity—Sumerian, Egyptian, Indian. Why is that compared to the pop culture of the West, which also has its problems but deals better with the modern world? Look, Western culture, what you see in the modern day, is actually a pretty modern adaptation. It’s only a few centuries old. It’s a mix of Greco-Roman, Enlightenment, and late Christianity. It’s been only a few centuries. A civilisation, if it lasts many thousands of years, as ours has—the only one that has—then you know that it has merit. There are good things to learn from all cultures. We discuss many of these issues. I know time is running out in our podcast as well. Do check the podcast, Dilip Piramal supports that.
And my brother, yes, you’re right. He started a biotech company. My father, my late father, and my brother started it. And both my brothers now run that company. It’s in the space of cancer detection. The first one in the world actually to do it—we just received the US patent. And actually, that was Dad saying that don’t drown in your grief. Ensure that what Himanshu suffered, no one else will suffer. What used to drive Dad is what drives us to get this company out. Thank you so much for asking about it.
Amish, so as a mum to a 13-year-old, and we have all been there, it’s one thing—everything you spoke about your childhood and how you guys were brought up—it’s a lot more challenging today. Of course, you’re navigating the quagmire of social media, all this extraneous stress, the pressures. It’s not bad enough what the world outside is doing to them, their minds are far more fragile. Any tools, tips, or tricks that you may have used for your children that would help people like us who are really navigating a very difficult teen generation today to get through life and all that entails?
It’s a tough time because the West has tremendous influence. There are many good things in the West. But I lived for four and a half years in London. And I’m not anti-West—there are many good things that we can learn. But India seems to be learning all the bad things from the West. Families are breaking up, communities are breaking up. The value of religion—and religion is not about faith in the Indian way. And I’m not just talking about the Dharmic religions—all religions. The way Indian Islam and Indian Christianity is practised is fundamentally different from how it is abroad. It’s about a community feeling. Only an Indian Muslim could have said, “Ya toh masjid mein sharab peene de saaki, ya aisi jagah bata jaha khuda na ho.” But it’s more about a feeling of community that does not exist in the West. My wife and I had been taken by two white friends of ours. We were told it was a club. It turned out to be a church that had been converted into a club. There was a lovely stained-glass painting of Jesus Christ and things happening in front of it. I’m not a Christian. I was offended. And it was his culture. He didn’t seem offended. He was like, “Yeah, this is our rebellion.” I’m like, how to stop the influence of that? I don’t know. We can do our best through popular culture. I don’t know if you guys saw one of those modern comedy things that happened, like the question that was asked. I’m like, in India, how can you even ask something like this? What’s wrong with you? Let’s not get so blinded just because they’re richer. Their societies are actually falling apart. But don’t swing on the other extreme, where a woman has to stay at home and all that. It’s more challenging. Keep talking to your children. Get them to read more. I have a 15-year-old son. I’m extremely proud of him. He reads a lot. Get them to read old stuff. Get them to read my books. Keep them connected to the community. Take them to charity events. They should know how lucky they are. Don’t just take them on business class trips all the time. They must travel by bus. They must have a conception of reality. Everything should not be easy. There’s a value to that struggle as well. And always remain there to talk to them. I’m always available to my son. It’s tougher, no doubt. But if you’re clear in your mind that blind, hurtling rush towards Western values is not a good idea, you’ll hopefully be able to influence that.
Bhavana Roy: Children don’t do—and I say this with a lot of humility because it’s not easy being a parent today—children don’t do what you ask them to do. Children do what you do. So, become the example, demonstrate what you want them to be, A; and B, Mama loves Papa, Papa loves Mama—is the best gift you can give your child.