Umai.... Reader's Club Blog post

SOMETHING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO HEAVEN Ed., by SUDHA MURTHY 
Musings on reading Sudha Murthy’s work: 

 Padma Shri Sudha Kulkarni Murthy is known to me through one of her speeches downloaded from the YouTube to play for our students during the PDP (Personality Development Programme) sessions. It was a moving speech that Sudha Murthy madam was giving in the renowned Institution of higher learning, UC Berkeley, United States of America. There is every possibility that you will invariably be moved to tears on hearing that speech- so simple, so starkly true as it comes from the thick of her experience with her work among the most underprivileged in India and above all from the very fountains of compassion that swell in her ‘humane’ heart. 
 [Watch it on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abcxyz] 

 Her speech raised many pertinent questions regarding life and the unconditional bounty it has showered on most of us; but we, unaware of the blessings, wail and rattle that life isn’t fair with us. As told by her in all humility in the midst of her speech, ‘A philanthropist speaks: Lessons from Life’ that the poorest of the poor has taught her the greatest lessons of life, Sudha Murthy’s words either from her speech or from her works (authored or compiled) take me close to life. The words of wisdom uttered through one of the real time heroes to her that ‘somewhere in life we have to draw a line in life when we can say ‘enough’ and ‘with this paper, you cut the trees and trade the wealth of the earth, which doesn’t belong to you; and you all must be thieves’ [excerpts from her speech in Berkeley] ring as the subtle echoes of conscience in me. 

It is worth a life’s treasure that we should all read the works of Sudha Murthy and stay in touch with the essence of her writings and speech if at all we wish to stay humanly sane in this increasingly mechanized world. [I may replace this photo with the most perfect one in the future...] 

Some of her famous works

The busy rigours of the academic and domestic life have made me, for a while, forget Sudha Murthy’s works. I chanced upon a book, Something happened on the way to Heaven,  edited by Sudha Murthy on the shelves of our library. This has once again revived the thirst I had for her writings and not only that I have decided to come up with a regular series blog post on her works not with any other ulterior motive, but with the simple expectation of a teacher who would be happy to see her children take to Sudha Murthy’s books and be thankful to all the gifts that life has literally rained on us and this gratitude may in turn make us sympathetic to our less privileged brethren and help each other scale greater heights in the journey of life. The first of the series comes with a few musings on the compiled work of Sudha Murthy. This is a book titled, ‘Something happened on the way to Heaven’. It is a collection of twenty stories that are based on real life. The reading of the stories gives one a very uplifting and ennobling experience. Some of her famous works: Shall we meet again when I get time to talk to you about ‘Somehing...?’