Sudha Murthy, I always had a special feeling for her. May be for many reasons. There are a few parts of our story overlap with mine. Like she is an engineer, teacher, chose love marriage, supported her husband in reaching where he has reached and in all this, she never lost her own identity, there are so many things I admire and relate with her. Although I had an opportunity to meet her husband, may be some day I get to meet her too. I am proud to say that I have read all the books authored by her till now, however my favorite is kid’s literature. Any ways we have very less authors writing for kids in India. Today I would like to tell you about two of her books that my mom gifted to my son, however the entire family ended up reading and equally enjoying the stories. These are books for adults and children alike.

Name of the books

1. The day I stopped Drinking milk
2. Three Thousand Stitches

Publisher

 Penguin Books

Number of Pages

Around 200

Category

Biographies & True Accounts

Availability

Both these books are available in book stores, online platforms as well as in the form of e-book as well.

What’s in it for us

We as human beings always come across so many experiences, some are life changing where some we just forget about with time. The author has met all these people mentioned in stories personally through her relentless social work. The people in these stories are from different parts of the world, someone like Venkat to whom only things matter, to a mother who if fighting to save a glass of milk for the baby in the folded village. These books fascinate us with the different aspects of personalities, how our parents can teach us irrespective of how old we get.

Great Stories, with life lessons

There are stories of sacrifice, care, belonging, faith and all the amazing things that life can serve us. In one of the stories Sudha Murthy talks about Rahman. Who has been brought up by a Hindu mom who actually never liked his mother, but a mom knows no religion, right?

In another one she talks about how she finds a girl hiding below her train berth, and how both of them face and change their destinies. There are some painful stories like life of devadasis and with endless effort of decades help them change their own and their kids’ lives. Story like ‘No place like Home’ gives a peek into the lives of women going to gulf with fake promises by agents and how horrid experiences they face.

Food for thought

There are couple of light yet educating stories like ’food for thought’ where we get pleasantly surprised to know the things in our kitchen are actually not Indian but came to India through one way of the other.

Children learn a lot from parents, Sudha Murthy has a very strong impact of her dad. Who was a doctor and professor and he always led by an example.

Both these books have total 34 stories and there is not even one single story that you would not like. I should rather call them autobiographies and true accounts as they are not fictions.

Take away’s

Although in some stories I had to read along with my 11-year-old. Its good that we read together, as i could explain her a few concepts. He was unaware about few things like Devdasis, religious faiths etc. Its good to find such books for adults and children.

I wish he remembers these stories and learns from them. That’s why books are best teachers and friends. We can get back to them anytime. Books just don’t entertain but also teach us many important aspects of society, culture and life.

One good kids literature series, that I have recently read is by Apeksha Rao. In the entertaining and thrilling narrative of a teenager Itsy BItsy Spyder and Along came a Spyder.