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Follow the completely infuriating, utterly charming Professor Chandra as he tries to answer the biggest question of all: What makes us happy?
Professor Chandra is an internationally renowned economist, divorced father of three (quite frankly baffling) children, recent victim of a bicycle hit-and-run - but so much more than the sum of his parts.
In the moments after the accident, Professor Chandra doesn't see his life flash before his eyes but his life's work. He's just narrowly missed the Nobel Prize (again), and even though he knows he should get straight back to his pie charts, his doctor has other ideas.
All this work. All this success. All this stress. It's killing him. He needs to take a break, start enjoying himself. In short, says his doctor, he should follow his bliss. Professor Chandra doesn't know it yet, but he's about to embark on the journey of a lifetime.
Rajeev Balasubramanyam encapsulates the theme of Professor Chandler Follows his Bliss in its first chapter after Chandra learns that the thing, the one thing, he's strived for his entire life - the Nobel Prize in Economics - has been snatched from his grasp once again in what is probably his last chance to receive it. Putting on a brave face for his sympathetic colleagues is one thing. But when Jazmine, his teenage daughter, keeps asking if he's alright, this normally stoic scholar, "lost his temper and shouted, 'Can't you see I'm fine?'"..continued
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(Reviewed by Donna Chavez).
In Rajeev Balasubramanyam's novel, Professor Chandra Follows his Bliss, about a man's golden years' journey to finding himself, Oxford Professor P. R. Chandrasekhar takes a course in self-awareness at California's legendary Esalen Institute. Tucked between the mountains and the Pacific Ocean, Esalen is gifted with the relaxing sounds of sea lions as they frolic in the tide, truly dark night skies resplendent with millions of twinkling stars, and hot mineral springs to relax the body and mind.
If there is any place that can be called the seat of America's counterculture and humanism movements it might be Esalen. The nonprofit organization owes its 20th century origins to Stanford graduates Michael Murphy and Dick Price, who created it in...
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