SHORT STORY AS MEMOIR
Three Thousand Stitches presents anecdotes from Sudha Murty’s life
Dear Diary, finished the book today. It left a mellow aftertaste. I didn’t know what to make of it initially because the best way to judge a story is to gauge its effect. It felt light and uncomplicated, but unresolved, as if the pages ran out but the words shouldn’t have.
Three Thousand Stitches won’t be the book I remember. It isn’t the kind of story that keeps flickering in and out of your consciousness. No random face with a peculiar nose or the lights hanging in the sky will remind me of this story. I knew when I finished reading that it just wasn’t that sort of book.
It is, instead, the book that I will forgetfully place on my shelf. Its pages will turn yellow and an accidental glance at the title or the author might spark a thought. The story won’t exist until the eyes allow it to.
The writer of Three Thousand Stitches is powerful in her tone. She is boastfully confident, and proud. At least her voice is. But don’t get me wrong. It isn’t a repulsive trait. It’s the energy that deserves recognition simply because some are born to be great at what they do. Like Cristiano Ronaldo is at football. He, despite his hum- ble origins, has image after image of his contoured body sprayed with layers of tan, displayed in venues across the world. He is bold and confident, yes, but rightfully so.
Three Thousand Stitches has anecdotes from Sudha Murty’s life presented in the form of short stories. She recounts the time she was called ‘cattle class’ because of the language she spoke and the way she was dressed. The co-founder of one of the most successful IT companies in India writes of her ambition, when she was the only woman to study engineering at an allmale college. She remembers her grandmother and wore a silk sari with flowers in her hair. She describes the feeling of contentedness as she soaked in the holy waters at Varanasi. She speaks of her daily routine at the foundation she has nurtured so obsessively to help the needy. She detours into her travel diary and rejoices in finding a Bollywood connection everywhere she goes. She, for no logical reason whatsoever, ends the book by reciting her experience of attending an AA meeting to witness the havoc of alcoholism.
Still, despite the assortment of emotions, let this serve as a warning -- there’s no eloquence in her words or even her sentences. It seems they’re written on a whim and a fancy. They are an insight into the author but they don’t give away enough. The fragments of her life are too far apart, like a lucky draw of moments she chose to display and tantalizingly blacked out the rest. The stories are featured like scriptures meant only to inspire and not provoke. They lack intensity and the episodes are penned with a childish naivety quite similar to writing in you, dear diary.
Does it help to know that she is the enigmatic Sudha Murty, the philanthropist who gave her savings to create Infosys? Does her burdened name heighten your expectations from her? Does the knowledge of her authorship make you wish there were more dimensions to Three Thousand Stitches? It does for me. Yours Lovingly, PM