Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss, by Rajeev Balasubramanyam
Professor Chandra is viewed as a master economist, but near 70, he is again passed over for the Nobel Prize. Disappointment fills him, but he hides it as well as he can and attempts to deal with what he perceives as his failure, in a good natured manner. Actually, he is insults some of his students in the process. Therefore, he is offered the opportunity to take a sabbatical to gather his thoughts. Although he initially refuses, he soon changes his mind. Fate plays a part in his plans. He is hit by a cyclist and winds up in the hospital with some serious health issues. He decides it is time to search for some contentment. Once he thought he was happily married, but his wife left him for another man. He has not been as involved with his children as he would like to be since the divorce. He is no longer even in touch with one of his children, a daughter he fought with often. She refuses to contact him and won’t allow anyone to tell him where she is. He misses her. His son Sunil (Sunny), is successful, but lives in India running a business school with a focus on how business should be done. He rarely sees him. He realizes he is lonely. He decides to travel to California, where his ex-wife, Jean, lives with her new husband, Steve, and their youngest daughter, Jasmine. He is hoping to try and reconnect with his family. While there, his ex-wife’s husband challenges him to go to Esalen, a place he believes will help Chandra to gain personal awareness and fulfillment. It will make him happier. This experience opens a new chapter in his life.
Chandra, whom his ex-wife calls Charles, embarks on a journey towards self discovery. He is a man with a type A personality. His behavior and manner reflect his own upbringing, his father’s influence on him and also the influence of his country of origin, India. He is restrained regarding a show of emotion, and he is formal in his dress and demeanor. As he begins to meditate and grow more introspective, he begins to understand more about his own responsibility for the things that have happened in his life, for his children’s reactions to him and his wife’s possible reasons for leaving him, for his colleague’s and student’s treatment of him as well as his behavior toward them. As his ideas and actions slowly evolve, it is as if he “comes of age”. His change affects his interaction with others and they also change, growing more receptive to him as he becomes freer and more open. Old injuries and grudges gradually become less important as they are revealed, accepted, ironed out and even resolved. As Chandra searches for meaning in his life, he also provides meaning in the lives of those he touches.
He has enormous expectations of himself and his children and they often feel unable to fulfill his wishes. Each of his children is struggling to discover their own identity, unencumbered by his. His wife has found a new identity with her new husband. He begins to show more understanding of the plight of others and not only to dwell on himself and his own desires.
The book cleverly touches on racism, politics, religion, culture, morality, economics, world affairs, child rearing, fidelity, divorce, drugs, feminism, and more. As these subjects are introduced, they are treated with humor, a light wit or serious exploration. The book beautifully examines relationships with family, friends, strangers, and anyone else one might come in contact with, with all their flaws and in all their incarnations. Acceptance of what life offered was key, introspection was vital, self-control was primary. Chandra was a man who had almost too much self-control. It made him hard to reach, and it made him self-important, and perhaps, even selfish. He wanted to control others, to make his children in his own image. He showed disappointment rather than compassion, restraint rather than affection. He emphasized success at all costs and sometimes those on whom he imposed his control could not satisfy his dreams. They needed to find their own, and they needed to separate from him to do this. As the book develops, the characters develop and grow. The power of spirituality and deep thought brings enormous change to all of them.

I received this book from LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

sbilsby

Three things happen in Chandra's life at the beginning of the book. He falls off his bike,
has a heart attack and has missed the coveted Nobel prize yet again. Not a lot else could go wrong one would think. He has spent so much time working hard, his wife left him and not all of his three grown up children are speaking to him. He revaluates his life and wonders if he could take a break away from students and his now lonely life. He was advised to take a break and to find his Bliss.
He eventually finds happiness and peace but he has a long road ahead of him before he attains it. He attends a retreat and meditates to find himself. His children realise how hard he is trying to be an understanding father, and eventually it pays off and the children start to come around to look on him with more understanding.
The book was interesting and I enjoyed reading it. I was a little disappointed as I thought it was going to have more humour. Several of the short review's said it was hilarious and very funny. I didn't laugh once.
I give this book 7/10

The blurb of this book told us that it was ‘searingly funny’ , witty, hilarious etc. I found it none of these things. In fact not comic in any way, as far as I was concerned. However, I did enjoy the book.
I found it easy to read with a gentle story. In my opinion it was not funny but rather sad in places, as Chandra tried to change his life, and his family, who did not want to be changed.
The characters and family members were not particularly likeable, which seems to be the trend in books lately, however there was always the hope that they might conform to the life Chandra wanted to live. The book was slow to read in places, possibly because I did not find it humorous at all. I have read a few reviews and I think it was just me that found no humour. I would give it a score of 7

I found this book so easy to read that I finished it quite a long time ago
I enjoyed it and found the characters believable
The contrast between the logical professor and the world of feelings he was forced into was well written and the inter- generational differences rang true A pretty good book but not very memorable
That may be my declining faculties! 7/10

I tried. Really, I did. I just found the book so bland. Actually, I found the professor so bland. I didn’t like the characters- his daughter, his ex wife and her husband, the other students. I gave up, unfortunately. So, I best not give it a score as I didn’t read it all.

I found this easy to read and quite enjoyed it. It was funny but had a serious side to it as well. I liked Chandra and felt for him with his relationships with his children. I give it 6

Professor Chandra's Dr tells him that the stressful life he is leading is slowly killing him, he advises him to stop working and go and find his bliss. This takes us on his very bumpy journey to achieve it.
His reflections on his life and his attempts to regain his families love and favour are uplifting and often funny.He does get there in the end having learnt that a life loving and nurturing his family would have been so much more fulfilling than his work and his many fruitless attempts to win the elusive Nobel Prize. I did liked the book and give it a 7.

From the blurb, I thought this would be a light, easy read. However, I found that the text covered some profound aspects of disappointment and disillusion e.g. disappointment in his career, disappointment at the breakdown of his marriage and disappointment as to the relationship with his children. This was not a light- hearted read. Nevertheless the Professor's droll and dry wit made me laugh at times. All in all I enjoyed the Professor's journey of self discovery.I give it a 6.

I'm going to be honest I decided I didn't like the book based on the title and the write up of it so I didn't bother downloading it. So I'm giving this book a miss.

Sorry but I haven't read enough of the book to give a review. Started to read it and got into it quite easily and found bits quite funny and thought I would enjoy it but soon got bored with it. The characters were quite complex and I found that I couldn't relate to them

I really enjoyed this book. Although the plot was a simple one about a small family, the writing was really good, with plenty of clever observations. It allowed you to like, dislike and empathise with all of the characters as they dealt with the ups and downs of their family life. I think that the Professor and his family all evolved over the course of the book to become better, happier versions of themselves, and I was keen to find out what happened to them all. 8/10

I could not get engaged with this book at all and found myself skim reading a lot of it. Very bland just not my kind of book and certainly did not live up to the hype on the cover. Just a 3 out of 10 from me.

Average score approximately 6.5 out of 10