Chanakya has been a subject of many studies, and his teachings still have relevance. The author of Kautilya’s ArthShastra had such an intense process orientation. Chanakya’s dedication and focused approach to the ultimate objective has been discussed in many forums.
Radhakrishnan Pillai is one author who has written many books on Chanakya and his teaching. He has a PhD in Kautilya’s Arthshastra and has a master’s degree in Sanskrit.
What Stephen King is to horror, Amish Tripathi is to fictionalised re-telling of ancient stories, Devdutt Pattanaik is to mythology, John Grisham is to Legal, Robin Cook to Medical, Radhakrishnan Pillai is to Chanakya. As far as books are concerned, Pillai is strongly associated with Chanakya, as Dr Chandra Prakash Dwivedi is associated with Chanakya on TV and Manoj Joshi as Chanakya in theatre.
I, unfortunately, mesmerised with TV serial, in awe of the play and have read few books on Chanakya by Radhakrishnan Pillai himself was too full of Chanakya. And maybe that is the reason that somewhere this book ‘Thus Spoke Chanakya’- by Radhakrishnan Pillai fails to impress and engage me.
Radhakrishanan Pillai tells us, the idea of this book came from the publishers – as demand for ‘yet another book on Chanakya’. The book aims to simplify Chanakya teachings and present them in shortened two-paragraph summary each for the new generation with a lower attention span. The idea is excellent- but that is the problem. There are some 300 teachings without categorisation. Each learning has two-paragraph constraints. Unless really interested, the common reader is not interested in the book and the chapter the learning is derived from. And then there is an attempt to pair them with the current ecosystem and context.
Radhakrishnan Pillai- suggest three ways to read the book. (A) Read it in one go (B) Read one verse a day (C) Read it again and again. My experience says if you have read a decent bit on Chanakya and partially know his stories, subplots and thinking- this book reading may be laborious for you. In case you are not exposed to Chanakya- try reading the (B) way. But, I can’t see anyone reading the book the (C) way.
LEARNINGS
All the above does not take away from the labour and efforts of Radhakrishnan Pillai. So, here I share some of the titles- the learnings. And if you have been in pre-COVID-19 corporate life
You may relate to some of them from you offsites – teambuilding- strategy and motivation workshops. Here are few of the learnings from the book. Maybe you already are aware of them.
- Keep your head above your heart. P 223.
- Play the game to win or do not bother. P 122.
- When you set out to destroy, annihilate. P 150.
- Remove the unrequired. P 162. Think resource optimisation. Process controls.
- Everyone has a role to play, everyone should know their role. P 231.
- Leaders cannot lose hope; they are the only hopes for others. P 145.
- Listen to the wise. P 196. Like experienced people, coach, mentors and consultants!
- Fly with your idea but be grounded in reality. P 74.
- Continuous improvement guarantees progress. P 213.
- Either You Win as a team or succumb as Individuals. (P36).
- Do not ask the right question to the wrong person. P 103
- Do not get carried away by what you see. P 182.
- Be firm, not rigid. P 113.
- Be contended but not satisfied. P 144.
- Humility is strength, not a weakness. 148.
- Do not pin your failures on others. P 160.
- Everyone is not successful everywhere. P 45
- Everyone may not have all the qualities. P 184. HR reality.
- Everyone has some qualities. Identify them. P 185. Think appraisals.
- Everyone cannot be equal. P 186.
- Leadership is about winning the ego. P37. A leader has to manage other’s ego. P38. Maintain your dignity, not your ego. P 64
- Leaders mix with commoners but do not become common. P 142.
- Stop. Think. Proceed. P 50. Sound like the book Catalyst or How to get better at getting better and even my own styled PaRAM
- Exit gracefully before you are asked to leave. P78
- If you do not stand for something, you will fall for everything. P80
- Be careful in the company of leaders, they can make or break you. P 106. Like Networking. And consciously developing Brand-i
- Death us 8nevitable, prepare for it.
Radhakrishnan Pillai has done injustice to the readers by putting constraint of 2 paragraph per topic. One they do not fully get what is happening? How in Chanakya life did things matter? The readers are expected to take the authors words and pray that it would make sense. And that can happen only when you have time and energies to contemplate and re-search inwards. And for that, the new generations, for whom the book has been written- do not have this luxury.
SAMPLE VERSE
P 148. HUMILITY IS STRENGTH, NOT A WEAKNESS.
When we see a humble person, we think he is so because he is weak. But that us a mistake. Humility is strength, not a weakness. When Gandhiji started fighting against the British, they wrote him off, and his method of Satyagraha as something that weak people do. But that simple-looking unarmed philosopher made the mighty British empire come down on its feet. So when a person is humble, we realise in the long run that he is truly a powerful person.
Chanakya wanted his leaders to develop humility. That did not mean that he wanted his leaders to be weaklings. When situations demanded, these humble kings fought greatest if wars and defeated the mightiest of enemies. True strength comes from humility. Truly powerful people are always humble.
Now you can understand what I meant and why I would want you to save your INR 299.
‘THUS SPOKE CHANAKYA’ by RADHAKRISHNAN PILLAI- JAICO BOOKS. INR 299.
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