The Reluctant Family Man: Shiva in Everyday Life

By: Nilima Chitgopekar

Narrated by: Monaz Ranina

He's the destroyer of evil, the pervasive one in whom all things lie. He is brilliant, terrifying, wild and beneficent. He is both an ascetic and a householder, both a yogi and a guru. He encompasses the masculine and the feminine, the powerful and the graceful, the Tandava and the Laasya, the darkness and the light, the divine and the human.
What can we learn from this bundle of contradictions, this dreadlocked yogi? How does he manage the devotions and duties of father, husband and man of the house, and the demands and supplications of a clamorous cosmos?
In The Reluctant Family Man, Nilima Chitgopekar uses the life and personality of Shiva-his self-awareness, his marriage, his balance, his detachment, his contentment-to derive lessons that readers can practically apply to their own lives.With chapters broken down into distinct frames of analysis, she defines concepts of Shaivism and interprets their application in everyday life.

thank you

I loved this book, it brought so many new aspects to shiva that I was not aware off and helped to to connect to him and myself in a new way. thank you

Much needed

Beautiful and subtle truths to live life by. Wonderfully written and narrated. Very poignant teachings.

Awful Narrator But Lovely Content

The stories and mythology is wonderful, teaches a lot about the Shiva symbolisms and history.
Unfortunately the narration is very awkward. The narrator has a very weird cadence and puts emphasis on wrong words, often batches sentence fragments incorrectly to the point where you have to stop the book and think what she was trying to say, and generally her English pronunciation is often wrong.
Her Sanskrit / Hindi is helpful though and her voice is fairly pleasant.
Overall recommend but you’ll have to get used to the odd narrator.