Dr Debashis Chatterjee, the Director at IIM Kozhikode, needs no introduction. He is a well-known champion of gender diversity (IIMK was the first IIM to admit 53% women way back in 2013), and a staunch advocate of Indian wisdom. He set up the first ever Indian Business History Museum at IIM K with contributions from the top Indian business houses. Even before IIMK, Dr Chatterjee had made significant contributions as Dean IR, Chairperson-Placements and in many other roles, at IIM Lucknow, which he joined in 1996. Earlier, between 1993-96, he was the ACC Research Fellow and Co-Convener of Management Centre for Human Values, IIM Kolkata.
While Dr Chatterjee is a well-known academic leader, he is an equally celebrated author with more than 15 books on leadership. Not the one to rest on his laurels, Dr Chatterjee has recently authored his first fictional novel - Krishna: The 7th Sense. This enchanting debut novel is best described as ‘The Prophet meets The Alchemist’.
MBAUniverse.com interviewed Dr Chatterjee on the Krishan, his self-management mantras and if he feels satisfied and satiated with three decades of success. His answer “My best is yet to come” initially stunned us…But reflecting on it, we understood this hunger is what sets him apart. Edited excerpts from the interview follow:
Q: Congratulations for publishing your debut novel – Krishna. How is the initiation response, and reactions to the book...
A: The initial response has been magical. Amish Tripathi, eminent author, said that this is a fascinating book. Mrs Kiran Bedi is engrossed in reading it and finds its inspirational. The pre-sales of the book on Amazon says indicates that this campus novel on love is indeed turning out to be a reader’s treasure hunt.
Q: While you have written more than 15 books on leadership, this is your first Novel. Why did you turn to fiction… Is this genre better suited for inspiring the current generation…
A: A novel helped me in creatively explore a theme like love with all its nuances. Non-fiction depends on verifiable facts. Fiction is based on revealed truth. Fiction takes me to the heart of my readership
My writing style is I would say ‘inspired’ as I can’t write if I don’t feel inspired. I tell stories to inspire and elevate awareness in people’s minds. I call myself the mover of molecules in the minds of people. For a while, I told stories and ideas through non-fiction. But I wanted to return to the world of stories, to delve deeper into life and death and the connections between the two. Fiction allows me to access my creativity and imagination to deeper levels. It gives my mind a sort of freedom that non-fiction is incapable of.
Thus, one morning, over a cup of tea, I sat down to write my next story. It’s a tale of life. It’s a fable about love.
“Love leaves a treasure that neither this beautiful appearance called life nor the painful disappearance called death can steal from you!”
Through this book, I have attempted to bridge popular and literary fiction.
Q: How do you find time to author books while leading a top B-school and handling other important assignments? What is your self-management mantra!
A: I did not eat breakfast until I wrote 250 words every morning for years! This is the only thing that I did consistently. Needless to say, the seventeen books that I have authored or co-authored have come out of this kind of consistency.
Q: Coming to Krishna, the book, what it is the key message from the book?
A: Krishna: the Seventh Sense is an epic of timeless love. A magnificent saga of passion and pain, acceptance and affection, faith and fulfilment. A story that is at once ancient and contemporary.
The book scripts how love is the most important of all emotions that human beings are capable of. It is our seventh sense. It does not mean we negate the five senses and our sixth sense. Love, in all its purity, cannot be sensed by the head or the five senses alone. This love can be grasped only through pure devotion which is a quality of the seventh sense. It simply means that the undivided awareness of our seventh sense will provide us with ways to reconcile our other senses to discover the best in us. When this happens, we can read each other on a deeper level.
Q: Do you see Krishna as a spiritual guru…How are his teaching relevant in the chaotic world that we live in.
A: I feel it is very important to tell stories through the eyes of major characters. I was always fascinated by Shri Krishna. He was what you might call a complete man—a purna purush. He is a visionary. His own story is not so different from ours. I wanted to tell his story in a way that my readers would understand and can be applied to their day-to-day lives. As Indians, I believe we should all know the wisdom and knowledge left behind by our epics. The guru-disciple system—parampara—is the most reliable means of passing down spiritual knowledge. Sri Krishna's comprehensiveness is itself an instruction.
Q: You are on a US tour to participate in the annual AOM meeting in Seattle, and to teach at a few institutions. What are your reflections on the current discussions in management education?
A: Management education is moving from an understanding of narrow stakeholder interests to solving larger global issues such as climate change. In this, educators are moving from merely analytical to a more synthesizing and liberal orientation to education.
Q: Talking about the book, Swami Mukundananda says that this novel has timeless lessons on life's persistent problems. Can you offer a key lesson from the book for our readers...
A: Let me quote a part of the book Krishna: the 7th Sense
“What is the origin of all human problems? It is nothing but ignorance of our real nature. Our real nature is that of a free being—a being that is independent of the mental world that we construct around it… The five senses and our mind divide us. The seventh sense which is our undivided awareness unites us.”
To be human is a complex matter. It is a balance of many extremes. We have seen some leaders who are able to solve problems that others cannot because of the different perspectives they view their problems with and the different approaches they employ to solve them. In this age where we struggle with anxiety and depression in the face of uncertainty, it seems as if there is never enough time to solve each one. As the problems keep mounting on each other, we often lean on short-cuts to solve our problems. But along the way, we fail to solve the core of each of these problems. That is the fact that these problems exist in our minds.
“Knowing your original nature resolves all your problems at their source.”
We think that personal problems have a direct correlation with professional life. But unless you are fulfilled internally as a person, how will you inspire yourself? Somewhere deep inside us, there exists the pure joy of being alive that emerges when we are fully present. Life seems to be in balance then. This is what we call experiencing the meaning of life. And unlocking your seventh sense is key to this.
Q: How does one find his/her own Krishna!
A: I believe that one does not have to take up a reclusive lifestyle to find the answers to one’s problems. We often encounter people in our lives to whom we attribute a certain depth. Your Krishna could be anyone! It could a teacher or a mentor. It could be a friend or your partner in life. It could even be yourself! For Keshav, it was Krishna himself who led the way. For Kaya and Neel, it was perhaps Keshav that was their Krishna.
Rather than trying to search for your Krishna, I urge you to look deeply into yourself and others around you. If we devote to discovering the nuances of our own Self, we can tune ourselves to our seventh sense.
“Knowing your original nature resolves all your problems at their source…The darkest place is inevitably under the lamp that is lit up to dispel darkness.”
Q: As a leader and an author, you have accomplished a lot… Is there a feeling that it’s time to take it easy…
A: No. Not so far. My best is yet to be.
To read more about the book, click here
