The Wordsmith

He’s famously known for his books The Diffi culty of Being Good: On the Subtle Art of Dharma and the international bestseller, India Unbound. We caught up with Gurcharan Das at the Dehradun Community Literature Festival, at the city’s World Integrity Centre – India, to know about the traveller in him.

- Meghna Menon

What is your idea of travel?

To put on comfortable shoes and a hat, get a green or blue guide and trudge over steps to see monuments. For example, the Golden Triangle in the south of Spain – Granada, Cordoba, Seville – these are the Islamic Moorish cities, the Courtyard of Lions and the Alhambra gardens. Architecture has always guided my travels, even in my early 20s. Somehow, my holidays in the beginning revolved around seeing the Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram, the Khajuraho temples, the Konark sun temple in Puri and the temples of Bhubaneswar, Tanjore and Mahabalipuram.

Which is your favourite writing abode in India?

I’ve written some of my work at a beach house near Alibaug, across the harbour from Bombay. My wife and I have had that house for 40 years. While we go there less frequently now since we live in Delhi, it’s been my place for writing for many, many years. I don’t have any such romanticised place in the hills. But I grew up in Shimla from 1947 up until 1952-53 and wrote a novel called The Fine Family, the second part of which is set in that town.

So, travel does feature in a lot of your writing.

I would say yes, inevitably. Human beings like to move around.

Do you like to write while on holiday as well?