On the face of it, it's an absurd proposition: that the study of a lengthy Sanskrit text written thousands of years ago can shed light on the workings of today's competitive, capitalist economy. Yet that's exactly what Gurcharan Das sets out to do in his latest book, The Difficulty of Being Good: On the Subtle Art of Dharma. In it, the former chief executive of Procter & Gamble India and managing director of Procter & Gamble Worldwide (Strategic Planning) brings the ideas and moralities of the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata, into contemporary life.