Memoir of author Gurcharan Das to release next month

Touted to be moving and honest, memoir of author and former CEO of Procter & Gamble India Gurcharan Das will hit the stands in October, announced publishing house Penguin Random House India (PRHI) on Sunday.

The book, titled ''Another Sort of Freedom'', is filled with moments of ''deep introspection at every turn alongside wise observations on the author's encounters with history on four continents'', the publishing house said.

Born in Lyallpur, Punjab -- now Pakistan -- during World War 2, Das, a well-known author and commentator, studied at Harvard University and was CEO of P&G India, before he became a full-time writer.

His bestselling books are ''India Unbound'' and ''The Difficulty of Being Good''.

''The memoir has helped me to understand myself. It is only when I began to relive my life that I discovered the persistent leitmotif of moksha and laghima. This refrain has made me aware of the many demeaning human bondages in my life, mostly of my own making... In the end, a memoir is a story, and what is the world, says the Yoga Vasishtha, but the impression left by a story,'' the 79-year-old wrote in the book.

Setting out to become an engineer, Das who ended up with a philosophy degree from Harvard University, abandoned a promising academic career in ivy-covered halls to become a salesman for Vicks VapoRub in India's dusty bazaars.

This eventually led him to the CEO's position of P&G India. However, one day at the peak of his professional life, his high-powered corporate mask crumbles, and he walks away to become a celebrated writer.

The book has received advance praise from the likes of former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan and former governor of West Bengal Gopalkrishna Gandhi.

While Rajan described the memoir as ''frank, funny, and thoughtful''; Gandhi called the memoir ''an honest, riveting tale which will live long on bookshelves and in libraries''.

''It begins with his early memories of Partition's horrors and takes us through an undergraduate life at Harvard, where he studied with the philosopher John Rawls, and his time as a victim of the Licence Raj in India; and it ends in a search for a natural moksha. Gurcharan's life is never dull, mirroring in many ways the story of independent India. Truly a life well lived!'' Rajan wrote in his praise for the book.

The author's previously written works include ''A Fine Family'', ''Three Plays'', ''The Elephant Paradigm'' and ''India Grows at Night''.

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