Inspiring Memoirs
Three Thousand Stitches by Sudha Murty
I picked up the book as a friend of mine mentioned the author speaking on a platform about her work on upliftment of devadasi community in North Karnataka. I listened to her speech and the bought the book. I got a little disappointed when I found out that the book isn’t about the devadasi community except the first story, Three Thousand Stitches, rather a collection of life stories of the author.
As the book is written in a conversation style, it got me hooked. Three stories: Three Thousand Stitches, How to Beat the Boys, and Three Handfuls of Water, all describing different life experiences, bring tears to your eyes. Cattle Class is about the common mistake people make to judge people by their outward appearance (such as clothes) rather than by their characters. Rasleela and the Swimming Pool was a blast to read where the author’s grandkids turn into modern mythmakers, taking the Mahabharata stories and coloring it in their contemporary lifestyle. A thoroughly inspiring story is A Life Unwritten about her (author’s) father and how he helped a girl. It seems that helping nature is in author’s genes. In No Place Like Home, she tells the reader the perils of living in other country, when people aren’t completely informed or misinformed, and indirectly tells to sort out our priorities: family or money. The story A day in Infosys Foundation though gives an insight about her working life but it seemed forced and should have be avoided in this collection.
Overall, it is an inspiring, easy to read, book which makes you feel optimistic as author purposefully shies away to detail the darkness and rather focus on light and hope.