The World Is Carried Within – Eighteen Essays on the Natural World and the Working Life, the latest book by Hospitality Veteran Manoj Mathew V M FIIHM, Senior Vice President – Operations, Tamara Leisure Experiences, was launched at a special event in Bengaluru on September 3, 2026.
The launch was held at the Verandah Boutique Lounge at Tamara Leisure Experiences Headquarters. S.D. Shibulal, Chairman, Tamara Leisure Experiences and Co-Founder, Infosys, inaugurated the book, with the first copy presented to Shruti Shibulal.
The event also featured an in-conversation session between Manoj Mathew and Mr Ian Faria, Mind Coach, Corporate Trainer and Leadership Consultant. The discussion explored the experiences and reflections behind the book’s 18 essays. Mr Mahesh Iyer, Principal & Founder of Iyer & Mahesh Architects and creator of The Tamara Coorg and The Tamara Kodai, and Dr. Tapas Mukherjee, former Head of the Department of English, Government College, Bori, District Durg, Chhattisgarh, also addressed the gathering.
The World Is Carried Within brings together 18 literary essays, each beginning with an original wildlife photograph captured by Manoj Mathew across the forests of Coorg and Nagarahole, the pilgrimage coast of Gokarna and the shoreline of Bentota, Sri Lanka.
The photographs serve as starting points for reflections on nature, human behaviour, organisations, leadership and the inner life. Rather than presenting nature simply as a source of leadership lessons, the book allows observations from the natural world to lead into questions about people and the working world.
Encounters with creatures such as the Coorg snail, potter wasp, Oriental Magpie-Robin, Black Kite, Stork-billed Kingfisher and Indian Pond Heron become points of reflection on behaviour, intelligence, leadership and human experience.
“This is not a nature book. It is not a leadership book. It is a book about seeing.”
With a hospitality career spanning four decades across India, Zambia and Sri Lanka, including 33 years with the Taj Group, Manoj Mathew brings an operational perspective shaped by years of observing people, organisations and behaviour. He currently serves as Senior Vice President – Operations at Tamara Leisure Experiences.
The book is divided into four thematic movements — The Forest, The Organisation, The Shore and The Opening. These sections take readers from close observations of the natural world to reflections on organisations, working life and the deeper questions of living and leading.
Speaking about the book, Manoj Mathew said, “I did not set out to write a book about leadership, and I did not set out to write a book about nature. I set out, as always, with a camera. The photographs came first, and what they showed was not always what I had seen. That is where the essays began.”
Manoj Mathew’s Fourth Book
The World Is Carried Within is Manoj Mathew’s fourth book and follows his Dead Reckoning trilogy — Journey Without Maps, Where the Map Ends, and Landfall.
Together, the books reflect his engagement with leadership, hospitality, human behaviour and the experiences that shape working life.
Published by Quiet Compass Press, The World Is Carried Within features 18 essays accompanied by 18 original wildlife photographs. The book is available as a standard trade paperback, along with a limited edition of 125 signed hardcover copies.
