There can be a sense of joy in serendipitously finding something new and interesting. But there is a greater sense of joy when you make new discoveries on a subject that is all too familiar to you. To me, this came about through finding Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik and his talk on TED.
He calls himself a mythologist, and is very well-versed on all the mythological stories from India, Greece, Rome and other ancient civilizations. His command on the subject is spell-binding and his explanations are astoundingly simple, yet very profound. Growing up in India, I have spent several evenings listening to stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata, and listened to various experts discuss the finer points in these stories, but no one has impressed me like Dr. Pattanaik. His goal is analyze the stories and cull out the important management lessons that are applicable to the modern world. And he makes a strong case for the fact that Indian culture is intrinsically different compared to the Western world, and therefore, the so-called "best practices" cannot be simply adopted from the West, but instead, need to be adapted to the Indian context.
I have spent several hours listening to his talks in You Tube and reading his articles on his website: Devdutt.com . I would strongly recommend this to anyone who is familiar with Indian mythology. It is amazing how much more we can learn from a subject with which we are familiar, if only we pause to reflect and ask the right questions. Hope you like his works as much as I do.
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