In the name of the father

Arun Shourie’s latest book, Does He Know A Mother’s Heart?, is an emotional tale of the personal battles he went through in his personal life because of the sufferings of his loved ones — his 35-year-old son Adit who has cerebral palsy and his wife Anita who has Parkinson’s disease. Shourie was in the city on Thursday to not only launch his 26th book, but also talk about his unconventional and thought provoking ideas about God, Karma and suffering. This book, unlike his previous writings, is a personal tale of his journey as a father and a husband. “My loves ones were suffering and going through pain for no fault of their own. The questions that popped into my head were — ‘Why me?’, ‘Why them?’,” shares the pained Shourie.This is when he decided to read up the Bible, Quran, Gita, the Upanishads and other religious scriptures to figure out the utility of suffering and realised how most of the explanations were clearly self serving and logically inconsistent. He adds, “I turned to the scriptures to look for answers and explanations — and I have found those explanations to be more than unsatisfactory.” In Does He Know A Mother’s Heart?, Shourie questions the mindless cultural clichés about God and Karma that humans have been conditioned with even before they are born. Yet through his journey of pain and discovery, he ultimately refutes religion. Questioning the blind faith in existence of God, Shourie has recited paragraphs and paragraphs in his book telling how inconsistent our scriptures are. He questions, “If God is powerful, why doesn’t he do something about the suffering that is inflicted on innocent people?” He also accuses, “If a calamity occurs on an infant, we automatically blame it on the deeds of his past birth. Everything we can’t explain, we blame it on Karma, as if it’s a Swiss account.” Further questioning these age-old clichés, he asks, “How do we even know if previous birth exists, that we talk about bad deeds of previous births all the time?” With umpteen number of questions shooting in his head and no closure to be had, Shourie knows he has not found his answers.Nevertheless, he has learnt to cope with the sufferings through Buddha’s teachings.“Buddha’s approach has helped me deal with suffering,” confesses the scholar, adding, “It is according to time and chance that things happen --- time and chance are the two demons. There is no other explanation that works or is required.” Does He Know A Mother’s Heart? is an emotional, thought-provoking and a poignant tale that has moved most people who have read the book, to tears. “Anyone who has read the book has been moved to tears because Adit is just such a wonderful and noble boy. I would request people to open up their minds and not blindly believe in what everyone says to simply go with the herd,” opines the prolific Shourie before signing off.