Wise and Otherwise, by Sudha Murty


About the author:
Sudha Murty was born in 1950 in Shiggaon in north Karnataka. A prolific writer in English and Kannada, she has written nine novels, four technical books, three travelogues, one collection of short stories, three collections of non-fiction pieces and two books for children. Her books have been translated into all the major Indian languages and have sold over three lakh copies around the country. She was the recipient of the R.K. Narayan’s Award for Literature and the Padma Shri in 2006.

My thoughts on the book:
Life is a strange package at times. It is not strange because of its failures or successes, tears or smiles but because of people. In life’s journey, we come across different kinds of people, who make us stop and think about that strangeness. This book shows us some of these people, the incidents that Sudha has experienced in her trips as a social worker and brings to us fifty short vignettes of such witty and sometimes thought provoking incidents.

Human foibles like boasting of things we haven’t done when we have things to actually boast about, sticking to rules that were advised to us by those who have had experience of the same, or honesty from a heart that is innocent and grateful for things that have gone it’s way, each of these vignettes have something to say, something to make us wonder, and even sometimes touch our heart. There’s a tale of a girl who was sold by the boy he adored the most, her brother, and a tale of an uneducated woman being more sensible than an educated man. She brings out wit with an incident where a telegram worded the wrong way became a funny trouble and poignancy with the tale of a family who moved on after a death because the death made their life easier.

Read this book for it is a passage through human behavior, and infinite wisdom in thought and experience.



My rating: 4 stars

Book details:
Title: Wise and Otherwise
Author: Sudha Murty
Genre: Non-Fiction/Inspirational
ISBN: 9780143062226
Publishers: Penguin Books
Price: INR. 250



Reviewed by Leo

Shared with Indian Quills Reading Challenge at The Tales Pensieve.


No comments:

Post a Comment

Keep reading, keep suggesting, keep commenting

Book Review: The Teacher by Freida Mcfadden

  It’s Sunday again and I picked up yet another Freida Mcfadden. ‘The Teacher’ is the author’s first release of the year and like her prev...