Three Thousand Stitches – Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives

Three Thousand Stitches 

Three Thousand stitches are a collection of memories from her childhood to the recent days of Sudha Murthy, who is the Chairperson of Infosys foundation.  The brave and clever lady who admires me a lot nowadays. The quality of the book is awesome, and it motivates you all the way with a sense of responsibility. It not only entertains the readers but also educates them on how to cope with the world whatever the situation may be.

Also, it seems the language she used in this book is very simple and it can be understandable by all the common people. If you are trying to expand your vocabulary in English, definitely you must give it a try once to read the book Three Thousand Stitches. Moreover, the flow of every story is too fast, that we can’t stop reading anywhere. I will recommend this book to budding students who are facing issues to kickstart your career or studies. Scroll down the page to get details about the 11 stories of Sudha Murthy in Three Thousand Stitches.

1. Three Thousand Stitches

This story is about the first project of the Infosys foundation. It explains how the Devadasi tradition fall into wrong hands and they are treated as sex workers. Sudha directly went to the field and talk to the women about the seriousness of AIDS. But it was a damn failure and got attacked by chapels followed by tomatoes the next time.

Father advised her “If you want to change any people, first you have to change your attitude” and I liked her father’s sense of humour “Actually you got a promotion to chapels to tomatoes. If you go there for the third time you will get something better”.

She changed her attitude, wear a saree and tied her hair with a neat traditional look and went back with her father introducing her as a professor. This time they hear her words and her first project started. With the help of Abhay Kumar, the project was successfully moved.

She changed many Devadasis’ lives and their children’s studies. With the help of Sudha Murthy, they started their own work on rearing goats, buffaloes, cows etc. Followed by many threats and acid attacks it continued. After many years, they again approach Sudha to open a bank. Finally, the bank was opened, and it run successfully. Over 3000 women were out of the Devadasi system and their children were educated with the help of Sudha.

In the third year of their success, they invited Sudha as a Chief guest and presented her with an embroidered bedsheet stitched by themselves. It has three thousand stitches in each one. She felt proud at that moment and remembered her father’s words “I will feel proud knowing that I gave birth to a daughter who helped 10 helpless women make the most difficult transition being Sex workers to Independent women”.

2. How to Beat the Boys

This story is about how she joined Engineering college and how she managed as an only Girl. From a middle-class and orthodox family, she joined Engineering, instead of more struggles. Even the college principal tried to convince her father not to join that, College. Because there is no facility for girls such as toilets, relaxing room etc. Anyhow, she got inspiration from Tsang’s book “Si-Yu-Ki”. Everyone discouraged Tsang’s travel. But he travelled for 17 years and become famous.

According to the instruction of the principal, she wear a saree and started her journey. When she entered the classroom, the boys started shouting and spitting blue ink on her seat. Regularly, she got bad comments, paper flights, murmurs, tucking flowers in her hair etc. She behaved normally for all those things. There was a student-friendly activity known as “fishpond”. Every year most of the writes in that fishpond are about Sudha Murthy. Finally, most of the boys become her friend and ask for assignments. She left college with good marks and started her career in the corporate world.

3. Food for Thought

This story explains the indigenous vegetables and their origins. It was a fine day in her life spending time with her dearest friend and her family. She went to her friend’s home on the day of her grandmother’s death anniversary. So, they prepared lunch with the indigenous vegetables with a bland taste. The dishes are without green chillies (Instead they used black pepper), tomatoes etc. She started the conversation with a little joke which make it interesting to read further

“Is the lunch specially arranged so that I don’t come again”. Everyone laughed at her and started discussing the indigenous vegetables and what is the reason behind they don’t cook them on their death anniversary.

4. Three Handfuls of Water

It was a small memory of Sudha Kashi Samaradhane with her grandparents in the village. Going to Kashi is the toughest journey those days and we heard that many people did not come back. This small story explains the horrible reason behind the Kashi journey. And if someone comeback they were treated specially, and Kashi Samaradhane is celebrated for them.

On that special occasion, her grandmother wore a Banarasi saree and says it is very special and costly, which is from Kashi. Sudha had a desire to buy that saree. But later, when she started to follow a simple life, she hates that. She reminds her grandfather’s words “If you decide to fulfil your vow with your heart and soul, then the desire for the object goes away with time and that way of life simply becomes a habit”.

5. Cattle Class

Wearing typical Indian apparel in the international airport, Sudha Murthy was criticized by two well-dressed women. She was travelling in the business class travellers’ queue and was advised by the women to go to the economy class queue. She didn’t so they use the word ‘Cattle Class’.

Coming back to her office and had a meeting. Surprisingly, Sudha saw two women sitting in that meeting dressed in a simple way. The meeting was about to discuss about the coffee estate workers’ children and the education of those two women. Sudha Said, “The estate workers help your business prosper and in return, you can afford to help them”. In fact, it is your duty too. Helping them also helps you in the long run.

Continuing that, she starts to narrate a story about Bernardshaw in a British club. He was invited to give a speech in a suit and tie. So, he was not allowed inside for not appearing in that dress code. Then he wear that dress and was allowed inside.

Its time for his speech but he refused to talk. They asked for a reason, and he replied, “My mind is in no way affected by the clothes, I wear”. “Clothes are more important than my brain”. So let the clothes and tie take my place instead and walked out. The people in the meeting never understood why she is narrating the story. She said, “Only the cattle class folks will understand what is happening, you don’t worry about that”.

6. A Life Unwritten

It was a story of her father in 1943 when he was practising as a doctor in a small village. At that time, no one will come to the hospital since they prefer local medicines. One day 4 men knocked on the door and forcibly demanded to go with them in a bullock cart.

The patient was a 16-year-old girl in labour. He hasn’t been trained for delivering a baby, but he was forced to do that. From her story, it seems she got conceived by her classmate and he ran away. She delivered a girl baby and got feared by her cruel family, that they will kill or torcher the child.

Sudha’s father got 100.Rs as a fee and he gave it to the girl. And he directed her to go to Pune in order to continue her studies and raise her child with all details. That’s how the story is starting, and it is ended up after long years when Sudha’s father meets a woman doctor. She was the daughter of the first patient of Sudha’s Father long years back.

7. No Place Like Home

This story is all about rescuing a few women from India, who are got trapped in a Middle Eastern country. These women worked in that country as a housemaid and teachers. All of them got tortured, physically abused, and sexually treated and few got rapped. This section is an elaborate story of these women.

They escaped and stayed in a small home, waiting for their return to India but with no money and passport. At the same time, Sudha Murthy saved some money to Build a new Infosys Foundation. But she thought it is much more important to send them to India and spend that money on them.

8. A Powerful Ambassador

It is not a particular incident or story that happened in her life. It is a glimpse of interesting small incidents that happened from her college days to businesswomen, in the craze of movies and travel. And she explains how people celebrate Indians in Foreign countries due to the impact of Bollywood movies. Finally, she ended as “Bollywood is a great ambassador for our unique country”.

9. Rasleela and the Swimming Pool

This story starts with Harikatha that she watched in her childhood and ended with narrating stories with her grandchildren. The interesting part of the story is that she had an image of the river Ganga on hearing Harikatha, but the fact of Ganga is dirty, and the place is commercialized.

Also, he narrates the stories of Krishna and Draupadi, her grandchildren transformed the stories to the latest version. She was stumped on hearing the transformed stories. At the same time, she was impressed with their creativity.

10. A Day in Infosys Foundation

It was a conversation with her friend Shoba in Infosys Office. She invited Sudha Murthy to her grandchildren’s birthday party. But she refused due to the office working. But her friend does not understand her busy schedule. So, she insisted her to spend a day with her in Infosys. She goes through various phone calls, e-mails, meetings etc.

Shoba got tired and advised her to take rest. And asked, “Why do you continue to give your remaining days for this thankless job”. Sudha Murthy smiled and advised that “The truth is that I am the luckiest person among all. I love what I do, and every day is a holiday for me because of it. Who doesn’t love a vacation?”. That much she loves her job.

11. I Can’t We Can

This session is about drug addict persons and how they recover from that through the AA foundation.  The story starts with a girl who secured good academic marks and got admission from the American University as well as a job offer at the same time. But she is confused to pick one due to a lack of confidence. It seems her father is a drug addict, so she is always nervous about taking decisions. Sudha advised her and got curious to know about drug addicts.

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