Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss Quiz

Answer: Economist

P. R. Chandrasehkar is an economist at Cambridge University, holding the post of Emeritus Clifford H. Doyle Professor, a lifetime appointment that involves occasional teaching. Chandra is a conservative and is known for treating his undergraduate students in particular very harshly, leading to complaints.

He supervises a PhD student, Ram Singh, with whom he is also quite curt and unhelpful. He is divorced from his wife, who now lives in Boulder, Colorado with their youngest daughter and a new partner.

Answer: No

Chandra manages to get onto the 2016 shortlist for the Nobel Prize in Economics, and many people become complacent that he has won it this time: Chandra himself, colleagues, newspapers. He receives the nickname "Fifteen" from his colleagues because his college has boasted fourteen previous Nobel laureates.

However, Chandra loses out to two economists named Hart and Holmström, who genuinely won the prize in real life. He later admits that he thought if he won the Nobel Prize, his ex-wife Jean would come back to him.

Answer: He is involved in a bicycle accident

Chandra makes a weekly purchase of 200g of gummy bears at Mr Simms's Olde Sweet Shoppe but goes twice in one week, on a day when he is feeling disillusioned about losing out on the Nobel Prize, missing his family, and wondering whether his life has been worth it.

As he leaves the shop, the shopkeeper comes out to give him the sweets he had purchased and forgotten to take, leading him to stop in the road. A bicycle crashes into him causing a back injury that requires surgery and a "silent" heart attack.

Answer: Hong Kong

Sunil, known as Sunny, is Chandra's only son. Chandra admits that he feels a rivalry with his son, and that winning the Nobel Prize would have been a way to "shut his son up for good". Sunny lives in Hong Kong and is fluent in Cantonese, a surprise to his father who had always somewhat resented his son's lack of multilingualism, as Chandra himself is fluent in various Indian languages as well as English. Sunny's school is named the Institute of Mindful Business, which teaches business students and workers that they can achieve anything in life as long as they put their minds to it. Sunny believes that even people who suffer are responsible for their station, albeit not always consciously. Eventually Chandra realises that his son is not as happy with life as he seems.

Answer: Radha

Chandra and Radha often clash over politics, as she is a left-wing Marxist activist and he is a conservative capitalist. She is dismayed at his being what she calls "the brown poster child for global corporatism", while Chandra thinks of her as a pampered child who makes a big deal out of nothing and is full of hate instead of actually changing the world.

He has not known where Radha has been for two years, as she has sworn the rest of the family to secrecy and they have honored her wishes.

Answer: Attends a course at a spiritual retreat centre

Steve is Jean's new partner. In the sixties, he was a hippie and went to India to "find himself" for two years. He has even been to more Indian states than Chandra, who is Indian himself. During a conversation about his time in India, he mentions Esalen, a spiritual retreat centre in California. Steve suggests that Chandra attend a course there and although it is far from something he would choose, Chandra accepts as he takes it as a kind of challenge from Steve.

He attends the course "Being Yourself In The Summer Solstice".

Answer: Her heritage

During a workshop at Esalen, Chandra is in a group with Pam, a young woman of South Indian heritage who wants more money despite her current wealth; Daisy, a middle-aged woman who doesn't like the company of people; and Bryan, a self-confessed selfish man who does not see much of his son.

The idea of the workshop is that each member says what they feel are the "critical voices" in their heads and the other members can discuss it as honestly as possible, even to the point of insulting each other. The atmosphere quickly becomes criticising and somewhat hostile, and Pam is pushed over the edge when Chandra asks if she's South Indian.

She feels interrogated about her heritage and accuses Chandra of being just like her father who she has a strained relationship with.

Their argument leads Chandra to reflect that his own father had been crueller than he'd previously allowed himself to acknowledge.

Answer: Crystal meth

Jasmine is Chandra's younger daughter. She has been depressed and withdrawn recently after doing badly on her SATs, and her father's pressure on her to do well academically and go to a good university is only compounding the problem. Although she is seeing a therapist at school, her behaviour worsens and she goes missing from a party after taking magic mushrooms.

While Chandra is visiting Sunny in Hong Kong, Jasmine is arrested after taking crystal meth and robbing a fast food restaurant. She receives community service and a mandatory stay in a rehab centre. Chandra manages to get her into the zen monastery belonging to Dolores, whom he met at Esalen, instead of a conventional rehab centre. To his surprise, Jasmine thrives in the environment and meditation becomes very important to her.

Answer: Yoga

Years before, while seeing a marriage counsellor, Jean confessed that she had somewhat gone with the flow of life rather than seeking things she liked. She had only studied chemistry because she was good at it, although she found it boring and didn't want to work in the field.

She admitted that marrying Chandra was "easier than figuring out what she actually wanted to do". At the monastery she admits to Chandra that she has felt like this her whole life, just drifting by and pretending to have deep interests in things like other people.

She finally finds her "thing" when she becomes a yoga teacher.

Answer: False

Naturally Chandra resents Steve, as Jean had an affair with him before their divorce, and now Steve lives with Jasmine and so spends more time with her than Chandra does. After Jasmine takes crystal meth, Chandra is horrified to discover that Steve, a former child psychiatrist, has effectively encouraged her to try hallucinogens to "open the mind", albeit to stay away from hard drugs. This leads Chandra to punch Steve, although they are cordial enough in the presence of other people.

As the family all get together at the monastery to spend Christmas together, Chandra and Steve have a frank conversation about their relationship, where they establish that although they dislike each other, the arguments and petty fights have to stop, and that they should be "diplomats" if not friends.