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A Room of One’s Own

Author Sudha Murty talks about her latest book House of Cards and how the changing face of India has affected her writing over the years

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Mridula,a young woman from a village in Karnataka,falls in love with an impoverished doctor,Sanjay,and marries him. He soon leaves his government job and starts his own practice. Greed gets the better of him and he begins to make compromises and Mridula finally walks out on him. Sudha Murty tells this story in her latest book,House of Cards,published by Penguin India (Rs 250).

At Landmark in Ambience Mall,Vasant Kunj,Delhi,for the launch on Thursday evening,she said,“People think that if there is a story related to a famous husband,then it must be autobiographical. It is not so. I might have heard about these experiences,seen or observed them at some point in time and that is where I find my stories.”

Wife of N R Narayana Murthy,founder and Executive Chairman of Infosys,she wrote her first story in 1978. Circumstances have changed since she began 35 years ago. “Utter poverty has disappeared. The craze of going to the US has reduced. That is how my book the Dollar Bahu came about. Nowadays,marriage is not the ultimate destination for women. They are confident,earn their own living,and are not willing to compromise. All this has affected my writing,” she said.

Her autobiographical book How I Taught My Grandmother To Read was converted into a TV serial called Meri Pehli Chhatra for Doordarshan and later adapted into a play. “I was 12 and my grandmother was 62 when I taught her to read and write. I would even punish her and give her homework,” she said.

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