Wearer of many hats-philanthropist, entrepreneur, computer scientist, engineer, teacher-Sudha Murty has above all always been a storyteller extraordinaire.
Here, There and Everywhere is a celebration of her literary journey and is her 200th title across genres and languages. It brings together her best-loved stories from various collections.
Here are 5 stories by her that you must read, from this collection.
Sudha Murty talks about her journey as a writer in A Tale of Many Tales. She mentions how her mother would force her to sit down and write about the events of her day, and how this ultimately lead to ‘inadvertently improving her expression and adding clarity to her ideas’.
R.H. Kulkarni, a young medical doctor was posted to a small dispensary in a quiet village. One night, during a heavy rain, he heard a knock on his door. Four men wrapped in woolen rugs stood with sticks in their hand. They forced him out of his house and made him sit in a bullock cart. Where were they taking him? Read this gripping story to find out more.
A middle aged man brings an old man with no friends or family into the authors office, saying he met him on the bus stop and needed help in relocating him to an old-age home. A few months later, the old man is in hospital. When she goes to visit him, she sees the same middle-aged man there as well. Who is he and why is he there?
On an overcrowded train from Bombay to Bangalore, the author comes across a young girl in torn clothes without a ticket. She pays the ticket collector the fare for the girl but is unable to get her to talk. When she finally does, she finds out she’s a run away with nowhere to go. She helps her find place in a shelter in Bangalore not realizing then, the long way the girl will go from there, all thanks to a simple train ticket.
Sudha Murty tells us the story of being the only female in her engineering college. She shares her struggles-first in being allowed to actually attend the college, and then those she faced while being there. However, she was adamant to do complete her course and ended up doing better than most of the boys. She joined college as a scared teenager but left as a confident and bright young engineer.
