Wise and Otherwise-A Salute to Life is a collection of life stories or anecdotes written by Sudha Murthy, chairperson of Infosys Foundation. The book covers several situations that were present in Sudha Murthy's life and many life stories and real-life experiences.
The stories also disclose various behaviours and personalities of people and also talks about several morals behind the curtains. All of these anecdotes are related to Sudha Murthy's job, mainly at the Infosys Foundation, and also talks about several of her students from her teaching experience.
What I like about the story:
- The touch of realism makes the reading for pleasurable and makes it feel truly to the reader that the incidents were from real life and there was no spark of exaggeration.
- Bright insight given on topics relevant in a country like India like dowry, and also about subjects like posh and luxury, hardwork, hidden intentions, etc.
- The reader is successful in explaining her job very well. From reading the book, we can quite understand more about the Infosys Foundation, its objectives, the author's role in it, he work patterns, etc.
- The book encourages the reader for reading more anecdotal books and opens a gateway for such literature.
- The length of stories is optimum. Certain stoies get too big or small, but this book manages to maintain the equilibrium between the two.
What I don't like about the story:
- Something I may not like about the story as well might be the author's increased emotion. Sometimes I feel she is a little bit biased, like in the last story. It is totally right to express them in your book, but I would have liked it more if she left it for the readers to decide. However it is that aspect which makes her book hers, so.. can't really point out that!
- Reading many of the author's mentions of her teaching career and her students, I often felt it would have been nice if she included some stories from that period as well. It seems she just brushes across the topic and doesn't quite elaborate any experiences.
One of the elements that make Sudha Murthy's books hers, as I have felt from reading this book, is her morality behind each of them. She seems to have her own views behind all the incidents. The book is one I think people from all ages could read and especially for the youth, so they could properly understand their elders' views, likings, etc. and also so that they could follow the good manners from them. Overall, this is great anecdotal literature combining views and incidents.