God’s Debris & Indian Philosophy

Today we finally landed at the FIPHK Literary Group meeting – small group from Forum of Indian Professionals in Hong Kong who meet on a monthly basis to discuss a book or two and talk about their own reflections on the books under discussion. Today’s book under review was God’s Debris – written by Dilbert creator Scott Adams… it was presented by Hrishikesh Kulkarni. I’m yet to read the full book – I have just seen parts of it and seen the discussions on blogs & other social media platforms. I think Hrishikesh did a great job in bringing alive the book – lot of work gone into putting the entire book in a presentation.

The book made me think & I felt quite a few philosophical concepts were inspired by Ancient Indian Philosophy. I personally thought that some of the issues were handled very superficially. Not fully equipped to comment as I’m yet to read it fully but that was my first impression. Also I don’t claim to know Indian Philosophy but my exposure to people who know it is pretty high. I somewhere feel that there are a series of Western authors are taking inspiration from Indian Philosophy & then trying to interpret it in their own way. Nothing wrong in that but what disturbs me a bit is that most people try to interpret ancient Indian Philosophy in a very literal manner & thereby missing the deeper meaning attached to different philosophical constructs. Their exposure to India is through translated literature – so they essentially see India through the eyes of the translators (and their perceptions).