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Devdutt Pattanaik is a mythologist from Mumbai, India. He is also a speaker, illustrator and author, on Hindu sacred lore, legends, folklore, fables and parables. His work focuses largely on the areas of religion, mythology, and management. He has written books on the relevance of sacred stories, symbols and rituals in modern times; his more popular books include Myth = Mithya: A Handbook of Hindu Mythology Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata and Sita: An Illustrated Retelling of the Ramayana and My Gita. Pattanaik has incorporated the Mahabharata and the Ramayana into human resource management.

Pattanaik is a columnist for Mid-Day, Times of India, CN Traveller, Daily O, and Scroll.in. He hosts a radio show/podcast for Radio Mirchi, called The Devdutt Pattanaik Show.

Early life and education

Pattanaik was born brought up in Mumbai. He spent his childhood and student life in Chembur, Mumbai. He studied in Our Lady of Perpetual Succour High School in Chembur. Pattanaik graduated in medicine (M.B.B.S.) from Grant Medical College, Mumbai, and subsequently did a course of Comparative Mythology from Mumbai University.

Career

Pattanaik worked in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry (Sanofi Aventis and Apollo Group of Hospitals,[15] respectively) for 14 years and spent his spare time writing articles[16][17] and books on mythology,[18][19] which eventually became his full-time profession. His first book Shiva: An Introduction was published in 1997.[20] Pattanaik illustrates most of his own books.

He has worked as a consultant at Ernst and Young. He also served as the Chief Belief Officer at Future Group, one of India's largest retailers.

He was a speaker at the first TED conference in India held in November 2009.

Pattanaik has consulted Star TV network on mythological television series like Mahabharata and Siya Ke Ram; these serials have challenged conventional views of the narratives and opened up new avenues of interpretation.

He has also been the story consultant at Indian television network Star TV, where Devon Ke Dev...Mahadev is based on his work and Epic channel, where he presents Devlok with Devdutt Pattanaik.

In 2015, Pattanaik presented the Hindi television series Devlok with Devdutt Pattanaik on the "EPIC ON" channel. In the show, he attempts to demystify and decode the folklore and traditions that accompanies Indian mythology. In December 2016, he made "his debut on the Forbes India Celeb 100 list, on the 93rd spot."

Pattanaik worked on Audible Originals (India)'s audiobook titled Suno Mahabharat Devdutt Pattanaik ke Saath and Revisiting Mahabharata with Devdutt Pattanaik.[32][33] In his show he talks about the details of the war in the Mahabharata, how it affected the world, and what happened to India after the death of the Pandavas and the Kauravas. He also communicates the Vedic tenets which describes karma and dharma.

Art

Hanuman with Ram's banner

All of the illustrations present in Devdutt Pattanaik's written works are sketched out by the author himself, except in the Devlok series.[citation needed] Columnist Koral Dasgupta mentions, "Pattanaik’s art follows a particular style and is dependent on expertly sketched lines but the focus is never the perfection of hands and limbs and props. The pursuit is clearly that of beauty and depiction; not the grammatical detailing of a photograph!"

Views

Myth and Mythology

Pattanaik opines that "no society can exist without myth as it creates notions of right and wrong, good and bad, heaven and hell, rights and duties".[35] To him, mythology "tells people how they should see the world... Different people will have their own mythology, reframing old ones or creating new ones."[36] His desire is "to get Saraswati out of the closet. Saraswati belongs everywhere, she has to flow everywhere" and his body of work is aimed "to make knowledge accessible."

In Shiva to Shankara: Giving Form to the Formless,[38] Pattanaik explores the layers of meanings embedded in Shiva's linga and the transformation of Shiva, the hermit, into Shankara, the householder by the Goddess. Culture: 50 Insights from Mythology contextualises mythology and proposes that myths are alive, dynamic, shaped by perception and the times one lives in.

Business

In his book, Business Sutra: An Indian Approach to Management, "the central theme … is that when individual beliefs come into conflict with corporate beliefs, problems surface in organisations. Conversely, when institutional beliefs and individual beliefs are congruent, harmony is the resultant corporate climate. It is when people are seen as mere resources meant to be managed [read: manipulated] through compensation and so-called motivation; it is when they are treated like switches in a circuit board; it is then that disharmony descends causing disruption".

Politics

Pattanaik is wary of the influence of "white saviours" on liberals as well as religious radicals. He has been rather contemptuous of the hyper-nationalism of a section of American Hindus who are clueless about Indian realities.[41][42] He also frowns on secularists and atheists who deny their own missionary zeal and mythic structure, and see themselves as "rational".

Sexuality

Pattanaik has been frank about the LGBTQ revolution in India.[44] Pattnaik realised that he was gay in 10th standard and came out to his parents when he was 30.[45] After the 2018 decriminalization of homosexuality in India, Pattanaik came out as gay in a televised interview.[44][45][46] He has written about the presence, and at several instances, the celebration, of the queer within the Indian mythos. Elucidating that karmic faiths can be used to affirm the dignity of queer people, he speaks of how when one discovers love and appreciation for the world as it is, not the way one wants it to be, one develops wisdom.

Reception

Devdutt Pattanaik, mythologist and author, with books written by him

In 2014, Pattanaik was listed in the top category of bestselling Indian authors.[48] His book Devlok, based on the television programme of the same name, was one of the year's bestsellers in 2016.[49] Forbes India had ranked Pattanaik among the 100 celebrities of India in 2016.[50]

Fiction author Ashwin Sanghi has said that Pattanaik attempts to "explain mythology in simple words". Psychologist Urmi Chanda-Vaz, who calls Pattanaik "India's most beloved mythology explicator", praised his book My Gita.[52][53] Intellectual Shiv Visvanathan has praised Pattanaik by saying that he has made myth-reading "an open, playful, almost domestic game, like Chinese Checkers or Scrabble".

Neil Gaiman praised Devdutt Pattanaik for his 2016 book Olympus: An Indian Retelling of the Greek Myth. "I read a fantastic Indian writer recently where he told Greek myth but from an Indian perspective... He makes it so easy to understand but what is lovely is that he does from a very proud Indian connect."

Pattanaik coined the phrase "Bharat Tyagi" to depict "a small group of PIOs, Queen Victoria’s frozen-in-time children, (who) imagine they must save India from Indians".

Courtesy -- wikipedia

- Devdutt Pattanaik

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