The Old Man And His God

Publisher: Penguin

Number of Pages: 131

“The Old Man and His God: Discovering the Spirit of India” by Sudha Murty is a collection of short stories from Sudha Murty’s life including her time as a philanthropist. These are non-fictional tales of times she has spent with her family, friends, colleagues, students, people she has met as a part of her activities as a social worker.

During this time she has varied experiences. These experiences surprised her, saddened her, made her happy.. but most of all enriched her in a way no book or tutoring ever can. Reading this book was a small attempt from my end to absorb a bit of it from her!

Each and every one of us go through such experiences, touching innumerable lives throughout our lives and each meeting, each departure writes a new story. Most of these get lost in time but some of these are worth sharing. But the amazing thing is that those forgettable moments build us as much as the unforgettable ones!! While I am busy contemplating my own life, I took to some learning from this book as “The Day I Stopped Drinking Milk” had set me rolling for a healthy dosage of life lessons every single day!!

Image result for the old man and his god — Alternate Cover

As with the previous book, I started reading one story a day..right in the morning before starting my very own rendezvous with life.

However, the enthusiasm with which I had started reading “The Old Man and His God” soon died down after a few stories.. I loved “The Day I Stopped Drinking Milk” to the core and as mentioned in my review itself, couldn’t wait to grab her next book!

Maybe it set extremely high expectations in my mind.. Soon I realized all of experiences can’t be equally interesting or moving.. and a lot of encounters look valuable.only in retrospect. After all, it is not fiction where you can add up something just to keep the interest piqued. So, I kept on reading and a few stories later I was back in awe of life and the myriad of experiences a single person can go through. Towards the end, there is a story on mother’s love which moved me so much that my eyes welled up with tears. I was astonished as I realized the stark difference between the stories on mother’s love and circumstances in the two books I had read by the same person!

Overall this collection of stories was worth my while and would recommend it to anybody who is interested in slice-of-life short stories!!