How I taught my grandmother to read!!!

Preface: Gives me immense pleasure to write about a woman I am completely in awe of!!!

Alright, reproducing this title verbatim is copyright infringement (although tempting to take a leaf from Anu Malik's book, i would like to say inspiration), but in my defence, this clearly shows the humongous influence, this tiny little books has had on me. Like many others, I was completely unaware about the existence of this book, until I happened to lay my hands on it recently. However, I must admit that I have maintained the highest regard for the author of this book. This book however revealed some newer dimensions about her powerful personality and generated tremendous admiration towards her to say the least.
This book is a collection of short stories by Sudha Murty,- the significant other half (I find the word better half to be an understatement to describe this amazing woman who has a strong individual persona) of India's IT baron, Narayana Murty. Th book unraveled the multifaceted Sudha Murty. Her life as an innocent child having tremendous zest for life and who took it upon her to make her grandmother literate (hence the title) at an age, when starting to learn is considered inane by most of us. The only female student at IISc Bangalore also coupled with the distinction of being the topper who had the audacity to write to Sir JRD questioning Tata's policy of not hiring female engineers and then going on to become the first woman floor engineer at Telco. The woman who had tremendous belief in her husband's dreams.Her unconditional support, timely help and Narayana Murty's grit are the pillars on which stands the edifice of Infosys- one of the most revered companies not just nationwide but worldwide.
But what touched me the most about this achievers personality and what was a startling revelation of her life was her life as a teacher and her uncanny ability to inspire and guide her students through a unique art of story telling (without giving sermons, I am sure we all detest advises). This hallmark of her persona has been depicted wonderfully in her book, wherein every chapter is a short story of her life narrated in an extremely lucid manner but the thoughts and message it conveys- extremely poignant.
I read this book at a point, when everything did not seem very rosy in my life, but with every chapter I read, the imbroglio (at that point it did seem to be like that) I was in started slowly detangling and by the end of the book my perspective towards the whole issue changed. The story that inspired me the most and brought about a radical change in me was the one that she narrated to her students in response to a question "What do you do when you are posed with a problem seeming insurmountable and that which makes you feel everything is over?" To this she narrated the story of Lord Hanuman getting the medicinal herb Sanjeevani. When Laxmana was seriously wounded, this was the only herb that could reinforce life within him. Lord Hanuman was entrusted the job of getting the herb, but when he flew to the directed mountain, he was unable to recognize the required herb amidst the millions of plants growing there and he knew he could not return empty handed. But how could he carry the mountain????? But he had this unique power in him to grow bigger in size and he did that until the mountain actually seemed so minuscule that he could carry it in his palm and he thus proved to be the savior of Laxmana's life. She ended her story here. Perplexed by this abstract answer (like many of you are-including me whilst reading) the student demanded that this was no answer to her question. To this Sudha Murty said, she hadn't finished her story yet. The message she wanted to convey was that when faced with a problem, if you start feeling that the problem is bigger than your self, it definitely becomes invincible. However, we must all remember that each one of us has this innate strength within all of us, which otherwise dormant if awakened bring to fore our strengths and our powerful self to such an extent that this huge daunting impediment will seem so insignificant that we shall be able to easily overcome it. This problem also actually helps us self introspect and stir up our dormancy that needs constant wake up calls to prevent our strengths to go into hibernation and this is what Lord Hanuman did to overpower the problem he faced.
The story indeed helped me realize that its actually a different high facing challenges and emerging victorious. I cannot really capture this wonderful persona in just one blog. I have however made the most earnest attempt to share some interesting facets about this truly inspiring woman and highly recommend everyone to grab a copy of the book to catch a glimpse of her life.