Sudha Ajji

The name of the person who has been bedrock all through my life and to whom I owe all my small and big happiness is my mom Sudha. Recently when my confidence was seriously challenged by manager's feedback on my work at the company, my mother sat me down and without bothering with the heavy headed philosophy, she told me a story about Thomas Alva Edison and his mother.

When Edison was a small kid and went to school one fine day he came home to painfully ask his mom what 'rotten' meant. On inquiring further she came to know that a teacher had called little Edison's brain rotten. The mother nevertheless explained what the word meant and told him to not believe in the remark made on him by the teacher. Next day she went to school and reprimanded the teacher by telling "I don't believe my son's brain is rotten. When you and your school have perished my son's name will be a household name in the entire world. He will light the world with his intelligence."

After narrating this story my mom simply reckoned that I must believe in my capabilities no matter what the so-called 'superiors' say and she was very proud of my caliber and hard work. This simple incident magnified my confidence and I was in tears (though the proud me didn't allow them to surface in front of my mother)for my mother's support and confidence. My entire life has been filled with stories from my mom- stories about Mahabharatha, Ramayana, Indian history, Kannada novels/magazines, Shakespeare, Kannada classics and another great book -her life. She never runs out of proverbs, poems and anecdotes from her life. She loves to pass on this privilege of story telling as a grandma (ajji)to my niece, her grand daughter as well. I just finished reading works of one more Sudha Ajji that is Sudha Murty best known as the chairperson of Infosys Foundation.

Sudha Murty doesn't need an introduction to Indians. Though her personal glory is hidden behind that of Infosys' success, a fair justice to know her can be done by reading more about her here. Of all her works I have read 3 till date. They are:
1. Grandma's bag of stories

2. The bird with golden wings - Stories of wit and magic

3. How I taught my grandmother to read and other stories

While the first two books are a collection of various stories from Sudha Murty's imagination, the third is a collection of incidents from her own life narrated with great skills of a story teller. In all these books Sudha Murty takes grandmother like role in weaving the stories. The writing is simple yet powerful spanning through various castes, places and times. These books can be enjoyed by children and more by adults since they can analyse and evaluate the grand morals of life discussed in the stories. Sudha Murty fondly speaks of her humble upbringing, loving grandparents, major events of her life and never once does she make readers feel its the same seed investor of Infosys with a 30 year annual return of 78%). She is one of the most successful institutional investment managers in the world – surpassing Warren Buffett's 36-year Berkshire Hathaway annual return of 22%.

Read the books to see what happens when Sudha Murty writes an angry letter to JRD Tata, when APJ Abdul Kalam calls her on telephone, how the initial investment of Infosys was amassed and various other life changing stories. On a lighter note, for the story hungry child in you read to know what happens to the greedy Lakshmi when she becomes lazy and depends on a wish fulling fish's blessings, how a payasam hungry bear loses his temper and many things that happen in the lives of interesting people.