Two wonderful books by Sudha Murthy...

Dear All,

I completed two more wonderful books by Sudha Murthy... 'Old Man and His God' and 'Wise and Otherwise'... Such a great heart she has! I can't even find words to describe what I felt while I was reading those books. So simple but powerful messages from each of her story... 

One day I was on the way from office to home. I was reading 'Old Man and His God' in the bus. I was so struck by one story I forgot where I was. Tears began to blur my vision and I looked out the window. I began to wonder about my life.... How much luxury is around us. Still are we giving something back to the society? How many poor children are there around us? Are we even paying attention to them? Are we blocking them out of our vision? Have we become so heartless to walk away from those helpless children who does not have any other option but to beg for food?

Today is 1st August. The first day of a month. We should be asking a lot of questions to ourselves...

Sudha Murthy- Gem of a Woman...

Today I finished reading a very beautiful book. 

It was a children’s book… I had ignored this book before because of the same reason. But on last Friday I thought I will read it anyway since I love Children’s stories and the book was available in my Office’s library. I still enjoy reading the fairy tales and the Jataka tales.

So coming back to this book… The book is ‘How I Taught My Grandmother to Read and Other Stories’ by Sudha Murthy. As you all know Sudha Murthy is a social worker, author and the spouse of Narayana Murthy of Infosys.

I was already in love with this woman when I completed the first few stories of this book. I remember my friend’s sister referring to Sudha Murthy as a ‘Gem of a Woman’. I found that the remark is absolutely true. My perspective on teaching and work was permanently changed by this simple humble book and its author. The most beautiful thing about the book is that the message comes from so many people- author’s grandparents, daughter, JRD Tata and so many others.  The books teach us that the most eye-opening lessons of life come from such simple stories. The stories teach you about life and sometimes the stories change your life.

So many things struck me in this book especially the things said by the author’s grandmother.

‘Child, whenever you want to give something to somebody, give the best in you, never the second best. That is what I learned from life. God is not there in the temple, mosque or church. He is with the people. If you serve them with whatever you have, you have served God.’ Says the author’s grandmother in the book.

I am planning to read all her books and I think I can’t wait another minute to run to the store and buy every book they have, written by Sudha Murthy.

 Please read this book if possible and please tell these stories to your children. It might change their lives.

Where the Rain is Born by Anita Nair

           I came across this book a long time ago when I was in college. I loved it so much that I used to carry it around a lot. 

It is a collection of works of famous authors like Balachandran Chullikad, Alexander Frater,Shashi Tharoor,V.K. Madhavankutti, Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, William Dalrymple, Vaikom Muhammed Basheer, Ammu Joseh, O.V. Vijayan, Pankaj Mishra,C.V. Raman Pillai, Jeet Thayil, Jayanth Kodkani,M.T. Vasudevan Nair,Suresh Menon,Ayyappa Panikker, Salman Rushdie, Lalithambika Antharjanam, Paul Zacharia, Ravi Menon, M. Mukundan, Arundhathi Roy,

Jaishree Mishra,Vijay nambeesan,Ramachandra Guha,David Davidar,Geeta Doctor,C.P. Surendran, Kamala Das,Bill Aitken,Shashi Warrier,Shreekumar Varma and Anita Nair.

You can find parts of famous novels or poems or short stories in this book. The theme in every chapter is the ‘Rain in Kerala’. The beautiful… so beautiful rain in Kerala.

I was keeping this post in the ‘draft’ for some time because I wanted to post it when it is raining outside.

Today the rain started in the morning. It was fun to walk on the rain-soaked streets. I usually go by a Volvo bus to office. It was beautiful to watch the rain through the glass windows of the bus. I took some photos with my mobile phone camera. But it is not that clear.

The rain is celebrating life. The new grass blades which rejoices in the falling rain also is celebrating life. And we are celebrating rain here. The Monsoon which comes as a boon has lost some of its beauty over the years. But it still keeps our imagination alive and forces us to move on… live and celebrate…

Try reading this book... and enjoy the rains….

                                                           

Arthur C Clarke Unlimited…

The way you do things in real life is not the way things would become in the future. We need great imagination to see into the future. Into the unknowns of space and time…Arthur C Clarke was such a person.

I finished his ‘The Sentinel’ two days back. It was a very nice book.. 

The book had 9 stories in it...Rescue Party, Guardian Angel, Breaking Strain, The Sentinel,Jupiter V, Refugee, The Wind From The Sun, A Meeting With Medusa, The Songs of Distant Earth. 

Last week I had bought few more books of Clarke... 2061, 3001 and Expedition to Planet Earth.

I had already read 2061 and 3001 a long time back when I was in college.  I had borrowed the books from the library at that time and I had loved the books so much. When I was raiding the bookshop last week, these books came up unexpectedly. So I bought them...