'Guru contributed enormously to saving Hinduism'

IN AN ENGAGING INTERACTION WITH CE, MP AND WRITER SHASHI THAROOR ELABORATES ON THE INTENT OF HIS NEW BOOK — ‘THE SAGE WHO REIMAGINED HINDUISM: THE LIFE, LESSONS, & LEGACY OF SREE NARAYANA GURU’

- APARNA NAIR

THE combination is quite striking. On one hand is Sree Narayana Guru, a thinker who traversed lofty Advaitic heights while challenging social practices justified in the name of religion, yet whose legacy has remained largely confined to Kerala.

On the other is Shashi Tharoor, a statesman and globally renowned wordsmith. The result is ‘The Sage Who Reimagined Hinduism’ (Aleph), a book that seeks to lift the veil of obscurity surrounding the Guru and take his legacy to audiences beyond Kerala. Tharoor talks about the book and why he felt compelled to write it. Excerpts:

I was always struck by the fact that Sree Narayana Guru is so astonishingly well-known in Kerala, yet not many have heard about him in the north. In a random experiment, I asked 20 people about him, and 19 of them went blank. There was an information gap. I felt that if I tackled a subject otherwise deemed not saleable, it would probably attract a new set of readers to learn about the Guru. However, to be honest, readership has not been what I expected. Sadly, this great man is not attracting the attention he deserves. Part of it could be because I did not have the time to promote the book.

The short-biography format is apt for this generation because young readers do not have the attention span for multi-volume biographies. My Nehru and Ambedkar biographies had the merit of brevity. This, too, I wrote in that spirit.