Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss

In his follow-up to In Beautiful Disguises, Balasubramanyam demonstrates with insight and a dash of humor that it’s possible to turn one’s life around after everything goes wrong. Perfectionist Cambridge economics professor Chandra is a supposed shoe-in for the 2016 Nobel Prize in Economics, but someone else gets the award, and shortly thereafter the professor is hit in a bicycle hit-and-run and has a heart attack. Divorced for three years, he misses his ex-wife—who’s now remarried to a Colorado psychiatrist. Meanwhile, Chandra’s oldest son, Sunny, is in Hong Kong, having rejected his father’s economic theories and set up a successful Institute for Mindful Business; his radical, socialist daughter Radha refuses to communicate with him and forbids the family to tell him where she is living; and youngest daughter Jasmine, academically adrift, gets involved with drugs. Things change when—part dare, part bribe—Steve, the husband of Chandra’s ex, arranges for the professor to take a three-day self-awareness course at the Esalen Institute retreat center. Despite resistance to such a place, Chandra is genuinely transformed—though perhaps a bit too easily. Balasubramanyam makes a winning case for how meditation, restraint, self-reflection and owning one’s character flaws can bring joy and satisfaction to life. (Mar.)