I entered a bookshop last week and I was struck by a trend I find in all such stores these days. There are not just shelves, but entire sections, devoted to books chalking out programmes to deal with the problems of life.
Decades ago when I was a student, there were self-help books like Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. Then came books on subjects such as yoga and meditation, which were normally the choice of those in their fifties. A decade ago, spiritualism became the newly fashionable norm and authors like Deepak Chopra became the rage. Then we all gorged on Chicken Soup. Now, there is a younger audience out there and the new icons, in India at least, are Robin Sharma, Paulo Coelho, Jim Stovall, etc.
Why are we seeing such a surge of interest in self-heal books at a time when all our economic indices are at historic highs and India is the second-fastest growing economy in the world? The answer lies therein — that we as humans are unable to cope with such growth.
Underlying such a blistering pace of growth, is the bewildering array of choices before us in every product-field due to which our lives have become complex.
We have forgotten that until 15 years ago, we just had a choice of two cars. Today, we have a choice from almost 400 car-models with prices from `1.4 lakhs for the Nano to `4.5 crore for a Rolls Royce coupe. From just one reputed cosmetic brand, we today have access to over 50 brands at last count. And product lines have exploded.
Similarly in education, where we once aspired to the IITs and IIMs, the current GenX has the world to choose from and thinks nothing of planning for a career in MIT or at the Kelloggs School of Management.
Life has become even more complicated when it comes to financial decisions. A decade ago, we just had Life Insurance Corporation with a clutch of policies, today we have many companies with over a hundred complicated insurance schemes. And there are even more complex investment choices in place of fixed deposits, mutual funds, debt instruments, derivatives, commodity options, etc.
My belief may be controversial, but look at it my way; every major economy had time to ingest the growth process. Not India. The US and Europe have had television since the fifties and have seen it grow to colour to cable to satellite, in the sixty years since. We have compressed all that in just two decades.
Such hurtling change has reworked our attitudes, our culture, our expectations and our DNA, leaving our traditions imperilled and making us all feel a little dazed. In such times, as in all times of uncertainty throughout history, we all seek the same old wisdom but from new age gurus. That is why we need The Change Within and the life-coaching books in the stores.
The writer is a renowned film and theatre actor