Much before Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1976 and Karl Marx wrote Das Capital, Kautilya – also identified as Vishnugupta and Chanakya – wrote अर्थशास्त्र, Science of Wealth, in around 300 BCE.  Ancient India was a land of plenty, called the Golden Bird, and Indians saw the world as one family – वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम् – and desired the happiness of all – लोकाः समस्ताः सुखिनोभवंतु ।

The Scottish philosopher Smith’s world was about how the wealth is created. He saw adventurous sailors crossing seas, conquering new territories and bringing wealth home, leading to industrialization. Smith famously said, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love.

The world of the German philosopher Karl Marx was about how this wealth is distributed. Industrial Revolution had happened by his time, and there were wealthy owners of factories and poor workers employed there. According to Marx, capitalists take advantage of the difference between the labor market and the market for whatever commodity the capitalist can produce. Marx famously said, “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.”

India favored badly after local kings were dethroned by invaders, and finally, British established their rule and destroyed the local economy. In my lifetime, I have seen the hegemony of the capitalistic United States, the dissolution of socialist Soviet Republic, the rise of communist China, and the transformation of my own democratic nation from a food-deficient nation to a 3-trillon dollar economy with good, if not the best, education, healthcare, and civic amenities, if not for everyone, to a quarter of its people and improving by the year. 

I was born in a middle class family. My grandfather, whom I have never seen, was a retired railway employee who gave tuitions in the neighborhood after retirement and constructed a three storied house in Meerut City, a cantonment town of British India, north of Delhi. My father worked in municipal administration and with the help of my mother, who was a schoolteacher, could send me for engineering education. My employment brought me to Hyderabad in 1982 and both my children are brought up here. We remain in middle class but have moved up from local to cosmopolitan standards of living. 

Thanks to my 33 years tutelage with Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, which started with working under him in the missile laboratory and being his aide, and consequently my exposure to the higher echelons of the society when he had risen as a national figure, I traveled to many countries and met hundreds of people of consequence who generously shared with me their experiences and wisdom. 

It was through Dr Kalam that I met Govind Bhai Dholakia, a prominent diamond industry person well known for his philanthropy. When he invited Dr Kalam to visit his factory in Surat, Dr Kalam deputed me to meet Dholakia-ji and understand his model of wealth creation and charity. Dr Kalam and Dholakia-ji articulated on creating a knowledge foundation for organized skill development needed as technology raises its level from gross to subtle. Dr Kalam departed in 2015, and I remained a part of the knowledge foundation that Dholakia-ji had created as per Dr Kalam’s vision.

I visited Dholakia-ji many times, participated in his societal work – especially the population health project in his native village Dudhala and surrounding areas in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat. I met his family members and employees and other people in the society with whom he had worked. Three things I found different in his world. First, though he could not study beyond primary school, his penchant for education, especially of the girl-child. Second, his support of needy patients in their health crises, both using his connections in the medical fraternity and financial support.  Third, his emphasis on an addiction-free life and a penchant for the joint family system. 

These are not mere ideas and sentences written as vision, mission statements on his company website, which does a business of 2 billion dollars every year, but these define his life. He supports a large number of schools. He has played a pioneering role in the creation of Kiran Super-specialty hospital in Surat so that no one has to rush to Mumbai for a medical emergency. His family – his six siblings and their children and grandchildren – more than 1500 people now – meet once every year and stay together for a few days.  

It was during the coronavirus pandemic that I broached the idea of writing a book about him. He was reluctant in the beginning but, perhaps impressed by Wings of Fire, which he had read in Gujarati and immensely liked, agreed. Then came the language barrier. So, his long-standing associate and educationist Kamlesh Yagnik joined me as the co-author. We had 48 Zoom sessions during the lockdown and published Diamonds Are Forever, So are Morals. Bhiku Parikh, Labour Party member of the House of Lords, wrote the introduction and, like a cherry on the cake, the Prime Minister of India has written a paragraph acclaiming the book.

I got another bestseller book to my credit, but that is not the point. During the writing of this book, I learnt a great deal about wealth or rather aspects of wealth. Indian society and a large part of it still live with the ancient mindset. They work hard and expect to be taken care of in need. Govind Bhai used his wealth to whatever extent he could to address this issue. The only prohibition he enforced upon the people who worked for him was zero tolerance of addiction – tobacco, alcohol, gambling, for example. 

Employees in Govind Bhai’s company – Shri Ramakrishna (SRK) Exports – are treated as family. I have participated in the 50^th year celebration of his company in 2014 and dined with 20,000 people – from small children to aged parents of employees, everyone was there in the celebration. Expenses for children’s education and medical care for the elderly in the employees’ families are borne by the company, and the deserving would automatically get a job upon growing up. 

As a good biographer, I must ask him how he got this idea of utilizing his wealth. He narrated to me a dream he had transiting in London from a business breakthrough in Antwerp, Belgium. I quote from the book: 

Goddess Lakshmi was saying, ‘I have eight forms, Adi Lakshmi, Dhaanya Lakshmi, Vidya Lakshmi, Dhana Lakshmi, Sanatana Lakshmi, Gaja Lakshmi, Dhairya Lakshmi and Vijaya Lakshmi (आदिलक्ष्मी, धान्यलक्ष्मी, विद्यालक्ष्मी, धनलक्ष्मी, सन्तानलक्ष्मी, गजलक्ष्मी, धैर्य लक्ष्मी और विजय लक्ष्मी). Depending upon your goal—spiritual enlightenment, food, knowledge, resources, progeny, abundance, patience, and success, I support them with abundance and success. So, tell me son, what do you want?’

I said, ‘O Mother, give me spiritual enlightenment.’ The Goddess smiled and said, ‘Had you asked for Dhana Lakshmi (धनलक्ष्मी), I would have established you here controlling a quarter of the Diamond business of the world. Nevertheless, you asked for Adi Lakshmi (आदिलक्ष्मी), so go back home. I will always be with you, giving you enough for all your good works. Do whatever charity you want to do without any fear.’ 

So, the issue is not what wealth you want; the issue is for what you want it. If you are clear in your heart and mind, the symbolic words used here to mean intent and thought, you will get whatever you seek. 

I can see capitalism, communism, and socialism as three different streams emerging out of this one spiritual spring. Simplicity is what matters in life. If the life is complicated, no wealth is sufficient. Even the wealthiest people live miserably. I have seen Dr Kalam rising to become a great scientist and the President of India. He lived a very simple life – all belongings that could be packed in two suitcases – and yet I receive every year the royalty of Wings of Fire for having worked with him. 

The Indian diaspora has excelled in the modern world. Indian-origin engineers are heading three top technology companies of the world – Microsoft, Google, and IBM – and many more. There is hardly any company or university where Indians are not present, holding responsible positions and carrying out work of consequence. The Science Advisor to the President of the United States, the President-designate of the World Bank, and so on. Ancient Indians called themselves the children of the earth and the sky – तन्माता पृथिवी तत् पिता द्यौः। (Rig Veda 1.89). As local people pride themselves as sons of the soil, I celebrate overseas Indians as children of the Sky.

Abhijit and his wife Juri work for Honeywell, a multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. With their 11-year-old son Abhiroop, they live in Bracknell, 40 miles west of London. Bracknell is a post-World War II, newly-built town, like Chandigarh in India. They do not own a car because their office is within walkable distance, and for every other commute, there is public transport.

Abhijit was born in Sivasagar, some 300 kilometers northeast of Guwahati, south of the Brahmaputra River. He did his Master’s in Polymer Chemistry from Tezpur Central University. He has fond memories of receiving the degree from President APJ Abdul Kalam who came to the convocation in October 2002. I, too, was there as part of the entourage.

Not knowing what next, Abhijit came to Mumbai with three other graduate friends to find a job. They end up working as shop floor technicians in small-scale companies (as good as laborers) and a chemical factory and struggled for about a year, surviving somehow in the Maximum City before getting a proper job with Asian Paints.  

Abhijit was sent to China by the company in 2006, and he worked in Shanghai for 3 years. After returning to India, he married Juri who was working for a US MNC in Gurgaon. She resigned from her job and moved to Mumbai after marriage.  But when Abhijit got a job with Honeywell as a Product Application Specialist in their newly set-up facility in Gurgaon, the newlyweds were perplexed. Addressing their plea positively, Honeywell recruited her as well, and the couple moved to Gurgaon. They were blessed with a son in 2011 and named him Abhiroop.

In 2015, Juri got a promotion and was posted in Bucharest, Romania. Abhijit also got a breakthrough to make a lateral change in his career and started as Sr Strategic Buyer in Bucharest, overseeing 100 million dollars spent. Time moved on, and eventually, they came to the UK in 2022. Though they literally are living as children of the sky in their careers, they remain rooted in their culture. Abhiroop speaks to his grandparents almost every day on video calls in Assamese. 

Geography used to define destiny. Earlier, people born in the hinterlands remained trapped in isolation. No proper education, no good employment opportunities, and the mindset of a sectarian living spoiled countless lives akin to buds never blossomed. The struggle of Abhijit and Juri in their early life is an example of the end of that era. The world has opened now, and talented and hardworking people are welcomed with open arms. But it took almost 100 years!

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was an emblem of the universal spirit. In the early twentieth century, when the idea of independence was fermenting in India, Tagore asked the fundamental questions: Independence for what? Freedom from whom? Liberty for whom? He penned the iconic poem – Chitto Jetha Bhaiyashunyo (Where the mind is without fear). This one poem, written as one long sentence without rhyme, stands testified by Abhijit today.

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action 

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

India is celebrating 75 years of independence, and from now to 2047 has been declared as the Amrut Kaal, a quarter of a century when India must find its rightful place in the global community. For the first time, India is asserting itself as a civilization. 

Besides children of the earth and the sky, वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम् (Maha Upanishad VI. 71) is another central idea of the ancient Indians – this entire world is one great family. How different it is from the violent creeds of denominational supremacy in Europe, which created havoc on the planet in the form of the brutal colonization of Asia, Africa, Australia, and America? What a great contrast it makes with Nazism, Fascism, and the Crusades! 

The hallmark of modern times is connectivity. Five hundred million Indians are now continuously connected to the Internet through their mobile phones. This connectivity is almost free, and though many may not cherish the blessing, it is not available yet for billions of people elsewhere in the world. It has become so easy to seek knowledge, know the answers to our questions, and be in the mainstream, wherever one may live in geographical terms. 

It can’t be a coincidence, a favor, or a preference but a tell-tale sign of the purity of the soul and clarity of the mind that Indian civilization has bestowed upon its people that is shing through Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, Arvind Krishna, Arti Prabhakar, and thousands of other achievers like them. That Ajay Banga, who studied in Hyderabad Public School, where my grandson is now studying, will be President of the World Bank for a five-year term beginning June 2, 2023, is both inspiring and joyous for the Indian children growing up today. 

But what pleased me the most about Abhijit, Juri, and Abhiroop is that they remain connected to their roots while living abroad. A tree is called a giant only when it is alive and draws nutrition from its roots. Once its roots are severed, a tree becomes material – bagasse and timber – to be used and consumed. This truth must be internalized by millions of those who, though physically remaining in their hometowns and even joint families, are overwhelmed by the nuclear lifestyle and do not care for their aged parents and support their siblings. 

Rabindranath Tagore, while celebrating the mind without fear and the head held high, also cautioned against this narrowmindedness and selfish attitude. 

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls . . .

Wars will be redundant soon. I have no doubt, whatsoever, that India would lead the world, not in the military or political sense, but in the Buddha way, living peacefully, doing virtuous and wholesome deeds, and treating other sentinel beings, including animals and plants, with compassion. The Indian ethos of loving-kindness would prevail over the greed of commerce and ideological violence. Those who take care of the earth are looked after well by the sky too!

I recently got the opportunity to offer the first sip of water to my younger brother’s granddaughter. The week-old child looked into my eyes and seeing her quaffing the first drop of water was such a great pleasure. My brother’s son-in-law is a Squadron Leader in the Indian Air Force and stationed at Hyderabad these days. I had somehow missed this occasion earlier when my sons and even my grandson came into this world. So, this joyous moment came very late to me, but nevertheless, it came. 

We all come into this world as little babies – weighing some 3 kg, as a bundle of joy for our parents and grandparents. Some have elder siblings around doting on them; others, the first child like me, are treated like a princeling anyway. I have no doubt whatsoever that each one of us enters the world as an immortal essence of consciousness assuming physicality. This conscious is smeared with experiences of earlier lives, making a little child laugh and cry for no apparent reason. As the child grows, it gets integrated into the world. However, past lives impressions remain operative as innate temperaments, whims and fancies.  

A lot has been said about fate, destiny and free will. Put simply, our fate gives us birth in a particular family and the initial conditions of growing through our childhood. We can also add our temperaments, embedded emotional drives and even genes as our fate. Parents and other influencing people around – grandparents, elder siblings, teachers, and so on – impose upon a child their own wills. Human destiny is all about emerging out of these traps. To become a person first, escaping the imposters. And then expand the personal consciousness  from social to universal to cosmic. It is here that people differ – one life may blossom and the other life may wither away.  

Nature versus nurture is an old debate. With the maturity of the science of epigenetics, this debate has ended; only the ignorant are continuing with the argument. A very large portion of our DNA—up to 98 percent—does not code for proteins. Believed to be inert evolutionary leftovers, it merely lives within us. Merely some 20,000 and odd genes are expressed – deciding our bodies, cognitive apparatus, and temperamental hue. Gene’s expression heavily depends on the environment – the internal milieu of our bodies as well as our surroundings. Children growing up listening to music around, loving kindness, and abundance grow up as different persons from those who suffer noise, neglect, violence and hardships of poverty in their early days.  

But even adversity carries with it the seed of greater benefit. As the child grows, the harsh conditions provide strength, toughness and endurance. Many who grew up living within balloons of comforts and privileges find themselves weak, insecure, and fragile in their adult lives. Life is indeed a great leveler. The unevenness of outer conditions in earlier life is eventually levelled off. I have seen examples of APJ Abdul Kalam, Barak Obama and Lula da Silva in my own lifetime.

In India, horoscopes are still considered at the time of marriage and there is a tradition of “matching” the planetary charts at the time of the births of the bride and the groom. I have seen all sorts of marriages – working, not working, and even dissolving in divorces – and horoscope matching is a wasteful exercise – amusement at best. Tuning of temperaments is what matters most in living together. 

But perhaps the biggest problem of modern families is dysfunctional communication. People are not talking to each other. It is very common to find TV always “on” in the evenings when the family reunites after their day-long outings and even at the dinner table mobile phones are continuously used. Children speak in monosyllables. What are you doing? Nothing. Where have you been? Outside. The old art of writing letters is also forgotten, and a horrible style of writing has appeared where the is written as “d” and great as “gr8”.

Neglect of the elderly is becoming commonplace. Old age homes are not common, but Ashrams are full of elderly people. Everyone, including elders, is responsible. People are obviously living longer and it is very common for people to hang around 2 to 3 decades after their retirement. The spirit of the third stage of life, vanaprastha – where the elderly take up a detached stance and do not get much involved in their grownup children’s lives – is by and large ignored. Either way, the grace of old age is either lost or robbed. 

There is an interesting story of Aesop, a storyteller of ancient Greece. A horse, an ox and a dog came and begged for shelter in a man’s home one winter day during a fierce storm. He welcomed them and provided them with warmth by lighting a fire and served food – hay for the ox, oats for the horse, and leftovers from his own dinner to the dog.

Once the storm subsided, the grateful animals blessed the human and each gave a portion of its characteristics to him. The dog blessed old age, which is why old men are frequently peevish and ill-tempered. The horse blessed youth and, as a result, young men are high-tempered and impatient of restraint. The ox blessed middle age, making men in middle life steady and hardworking.

But these problems, though in plenty, are not the serious ones. As Leo Tolstoy wrote in the first sentence of his 1877 novel Anna Karenina, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” people – young and old – devise their own methods to co-exist. The biggest challenge is the failure to live the human destiny of expanding consciousness. Selfish people somehow create unhappiness wherever they are. 

There is no scientific conclusion as to what exactly consciousness is, except that it is a fundamental characteristic of life. From conception in the mother’s uterus to the moment of death, every sentinel being is conscious – from bacteria to plants to insects and all sorts of animals, waterborne, amphibians, moving on earth and flying, and man walking on his two feet – are conscious of their surroundings and deal with it, knowingly or unknowingly, every moment of their lives and therefore, to be alive is to be conscious.   

Human beings have a unique gift of imagination. They remember the past and fantasize about the future. They can dream about their desires and strive for them. Not doing that is the biggest failure of one’s life. In Ramcharitmanas, Goswami Tulsidas compared the squandering away of this opportunity to expand the consciousness after sensory pleasures to throwing away a gem in the hand to pick up a shining piece of glass: काँच किरिच बदलें ते लेही। कर ते डारि परस मनि देहीं।. The neglect of the capacity to develop the divine consciousness is indeed wasting human life. 

The child is named Shambhavi (शाम्भवी), who is loved by Shiva, the eternal God. Everything emerges out of eternal nothingness and is sucked back into it at the appointed time. What we call day and night is the never-ending movement of the earth around the Sun. May Shambhavi grow up to the fullest of the feminine dimension of energy functions – balance strength with gentleness, express subtle energies lying deep within the unconscious – the real purpose of human life.  

I have been a frequent traveler and for many years, especially from 2000 onwards, there was hardly any week without travel. My association with Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam was a powerful facilitator and during his Presidency (2002 – 2007), I had been to every single state and Union Territory of India and joined his entourage to Singapore, the Philippines, South Korea, Myanmar, and Mauritius. I also went to Japan in 2004 to prepare for his visit, but it did not take place.

After my stable angina become precarious in 2019, I was grounded at home. Accepting the situation rather stoically, I withdrew myself from the happenings around me and focused on writing books. Working diligently, I could publish India Wakes with Bart Fisher; Diamonds Are Forever, So Are Morals, a biopic of Govind Dholakia, with Kamlesh Yagnik; Decoding the Pandemic with Prof. Seyed Hasnain; and Win Locally to Succeed Globally with DA Prasanna. I did Simple Spirituality on Kabir solo.

Then, the rising star of robotic cancer surgery Dr. S. Chinnababu met me, and inspired by his journey, I wrote Living for a Legacy. It is being reviewed by global cancer experts and will be published later this year. Even after the book was done, several thoughts remained with me – how cancer will always be present despite avoiding tobacco and other carcinogens, and how, as more people would be saved by advanced treatments, they would need medicines to remain free from a cancer rebound. 

Recently, Amit Kaptain visited me. Tall and handsome, the CEO of Vadodara-based Ami Lifesciences was born in Mumbai, while his parents hail from Umbergaon on the border of Gujarat and Maharashtra. He did his schooling in Mumbai and after graduating in science and completing an MBA from SVKM’s Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS), Amit started his career with E. Merck, handling the sales of Lab and Specialty Chemicals and Equipment for about five years. In 1997, Amit created his own enterprise in indenting APIs, chemicals and intermediates for the industry and exports of formulations. 

In three years, he lost most of his money and landed up in Sun Pharmaceuticals, selling their APIs and formulations in the Far East and Southeast Asia. In 2006, Amit joined Ranbaxy and worked there for close to eight years. By 2012, he became head of the global API business. In 2013, when Ranbaxy was in turmoil, and was eventually acquired by Sun Pharma in 2014, Amit moved to Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories in Hyderabad and rose to become their Executive Vice President and Global Head for Sales and Marketing. He quit Dr. Reddy’s in 2000.

Are we hostage to China when it comes to APIs? Amit gave me a broad smile and said, “No way.” India is way ahead of China in chemistry and there is nothing that Indians can’t do. Right at the time a patent is filed anywhere in the world, Indians know how to crack it and wait in patience for it to expire. Of course, with the arrival of biologicals – extracted from, or semi-synthesized from biological sources – in the pharmaceutical industry, the situation is changing. Indians are not yet equipped to create biosimilars and even after the patent expiry of biologicals, they are still not challenged by Indian companies and continue making money in the market. 

So, what is wrong? “A lack of innovation!” said Amit, as plainly as one would say that the sky is blue. His answer made me straighten my back. As a pupil of Dr. Kalam, an undisputed hero of innovation in India, my first reaction was of disbelief. How could it be? But as I dove deep into the situation, I could see the reasons and why they were there, and how we could come out of the impasse. 

Innovations are different from inventions. Innovations are new ideas, methods, or devices around something that already exists. While chemistry was around in India right from the beginning of the twentieth century when Prafulla Chandra Ray established Bengal Chemical & Pharmaceutical Works Ltd. in 1901, biologicals in India were limited to Hepatitis B vaccines and insulin. There was no base to evolve.

China made the most of the opportunity. Its deep links to American academics and research have helped it grow, in part through absorbing knowledge when it was being created and developing new advanced gene therapy drugs and other pharmaceuticals even before American companies could do so. A patent has a basic term of 20 years from the date of filing, which usually happens several years before a drug is authorized.

Because of the intricacy of biotech drugs, which are created through biological processes involving recombinant DNA technologies, they are frequently referred to as “biosimilars” rather than generic copies. One of the first big biotech drugs to lose patent protection will be Enbrel, for example. It is a rheumatoid arthritis drug sold by Amgen and Pfizer Inc., with a market of $3.5 billion a year. Roche’s cancer drug Avastin, with annual sales of around $6 billion, will be the next. 

So, what is the way ahead for India? Three steps can be clearly seen. The first step is to acquire crucial platform technologies and relocate them to India as urgently as possible, as it could have better been done yesterday. Then, a fast-track approval process should be put in place, especially for life-saving cancer drugs. Finally, all the drugs that are going off patent must be Made in India, supported by PLI (Production Linked Incentive) and RLI (Research Linked Incentive) schemes. Such proposals from the industry must be preferred over other drugs.   

India is blessed with immense biodiversity. We have the sources in our plants and trees for making most modern biologicals. By putting the genes from these plants into yeast-like mediums, these can be grown faster and cheaper. In the interest of the nation, export of all such materials and extracts must be prohibited for at least a decade and all drugs used in the treatment of cancer must be declared essential and regulated. This will set the ball of innovation rolling.

There is a scriptural account that while the king of Babylon, Belshazzar, was holding a feast, a mysterious hand appeared, writing on the wall of the king’s palace. The monarch summoned the wise man Daniel, who interpreted that the king needed to learn his lesson lest his kingdom fell. 

Nothing happens in this world without a cause. For innovation to happen, there ought to be platforms, people, support systems, and above all, motivation. While the industry works for profits (and why should it not?), governments must work in the interest of people, especially the poor, and even more so for poor patients, who must get the best of the medicines they need. 

Innovation is now a must-have, not just a nice-to-have.  The economic equivalent of “survival of the fittest” has been replaced by “survival of the most innovative” as the new Darwinism. The writing on the wall reads that India lacks the capacity to manufacture novel biological drugs. It is regrettable that out-of-patent medications are enjoying protection period pricing in the Indian market simply because Indian companies are unable to produce cost-effective biosimilars. If correct action is not taken now, India’s fate would be sealed, as happened in the case of the tyrant and indulgent king of Babylon.

Time and again I found books reaching me when I needed them the most. Be it The Fountain Head by Ayn Rand in 1974, which lifted me from an average engineering student to a meritorious one, or Gestalt Therapy by Fritz Perls in 1985 that helped me get rid of my migraine, or Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung in 1996 that provided me the model for writing Wings of Fire with Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, I did not buy these books; they reached me in a strange and inexplicable way. I can surely add to this list, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware that I recently read.

Well, I have been confined to home with stable angina for a while, and spend my time mostly reading and writing. Friends occasionally visit me and I remain active in my science and technology and innovation circle through them. However, there are no more schedules, meetings, and appointments. There are no targets to be chased. I indulge in a little meditation and reflect on the wonderful, action-filled life of more than four decades. So, when this book by Bronnie Ware reached me, I thought about the regrets I had in life. I decided to read the book first before articulating my list. And what a lucid narrative the author has produced! I have been a voracious reader and can feel a book after reading the first 10 to 20 pages. But this book kept me guessing till the end. And though it dealt with the difficult end-of-life situation, not even for a moment did it turn gloomy or depressing.

Bronnie Ware is an Australian woman and this book is her first-person account of working as a carer hired by the families of terminally ill patients. The reader meets 18 patients in the book – mostly old, but also a young man. While sharing her interaction with these patients, Bronnie Ware shares her own life story with brute honesty and candidness – her reckless youth, nomadic way of living, and working as a compulsion to meet her basic expenses. She mostly lived in London and the Australian cities of Sydney and Melbourne, and rather effortlessly take readers into those settings. The flow of thoughts, choice of words, and clarity of the narrative make one wonder if this is the work of a one-book author. 

As for the five most common regrets expressed by people on the verge of death, these were: a wish to have been courageous enough to live a life true to oneself rather than by the expectations of others; the regret of working hard and neglecting family and friends in the process; the lack of guts to express one’s emotions; losing contact with friends of early years; and not allowing oneself to be happier by compromising with bad situations and not walking out of them. Bronnie Ware even avoids putting them in fancy terms, and leaves it to the reader to articulate each regret type in his or her own way and “feel.” 

I deeply appreciate the book and the five regrets sound so true. Mine were: incessant travel due to work; mistaking the apparent with the real; believing people for their words; and above all, considering myself as the hero of my little drama without realizing the great puppet show that this world is. So must have felt most people, in a thousand different ways. The academically brilliant students turn out to be very ordinary in later lives and dropouts become billionaires. Hardworking people burn out and look-busy-feel-easy types rise high in their careers. 

Who lives? Who takes actions? Who regrets? Drawing from the Upanishads and the Buddha, I can differentiate between my mind – the playground of my thoughts; my body, carrying the imprints of all my past deeds, including that of my ancestors in the form of my DNA; and the presence of an immortal Self in me that is the foundation of my present existence, but sees all that I do or that happens to me as images falling upon a mirror. 

So, the answer to who I am is my body, supported by the environment and food, and my mind. Now, the important insight is that there are two types of minds: a thinking mind and an observing mind. There is a beautiful shloka in the Mundaka Upanishad (Verse 3.1.1)

द्वा सुपर्णा सयुजा सखाया समानं वृक्षं परिषस्वजाते।
तयोरन्यः पिप्पलं स्वाद्वत्त्यनश्नन्नन्यो अभिचाकशीति ॥

Two birds are sitting on the same tree; one of the two, tasting the fruits; the other, just watching.

Every moment of our lives, there is a tussle going on between the impressions of the past embedded in our bodies as drives and impulses, and the reasoning of the mind – to eat or not to eat the fruit. Obviously, in childhood, and even in youth, most actions are decided by “impulses”, and in later life, “reason” must prevail, which seldom happens unless one is mindful. 

Now comes the question of regret. Fundamentally, regret is sorrow. It is an emotion felt in circumstances that are beyond one’s control or power to repair. The regret of not eating a fruit, or having eaten the fruit! In the Vivekachudamani, Adi Shankaracharya describes Saadhan Chatushtya, a four-fold endeavor on the part of the seeker to become eligible to know the Ultimate Truth. 

विवेकिनो विरक्तस्य शमादिगुणशालिनः । 

मुमुक्षोरेव हि ब्रह्मजिज्ञासायोग्यता मता ॥

He who is discriminating, detached, possesses the qualities of peace etc., and is desirous of liberation, is worthy of inquiry into the Absolute Truth. (Vivekachudamani, Verse 17)

All mistakes happen due to an unprepared mind. An honest look will reveal all the shortcomings in oneself, waiting to create disastrous results. So, if there can be one regret, it can be wasting life, or better said, the human birth, in not accomplishing this four-fold education of the mind. But here again, how much freedom one has to choose, is arguable. So, is it all a fixed game? Almost. 

The Buddha gave, perhaps, the best knowledge mankind has – the 12-step cycle of dependent origination, प्रतीत्यसमुत्पाद in Sanskrit. In these steps, there is a step between sparsh and vedana, contact and sensation – this is because that is. If this stops, that will stop. By remaining neutral to the contacts of this world, by not acting upon them, by seeing them appearing and dispersing like clouds in the sky, we can stop the cascade of cause-and-effect by not acting upon our impulses without applying reasoning thought with patience – allowing life to happen, instead of merely feasting on the fruits. 

So, even this fixed match is fixed in your favor. Human birth is the best chance, among sentient beings of millions of life forms on Earth, to escape this mortal cycle of death and rebirth. All the circumstances in one’s life are meticulously designed to teach a way out. Even the supposedly unpleasant event of death can be an exit for the spirit from bondage into physicality. What a pity it would be to lose even this fixed match!