Sudha Murty, a recipient of the
Padma Shri and the RK Narayan
Award for Literature, speaks to
Monideepa Sahu about her book
The Bird with Golden Wings

As a popular writer for both adults
and children, how do you balance the different approaches to each genre?
Writing comes from the joy of my heart. I compartmentalise ideas in my mind and don’t work on stories for both adults and children simultaneously. For adults, I write what I see. For children, I take care to filter out harsh realities. Let children grow up reading imaginative stories with happy endings. Then they can face the adult world with more strength. I prefer using simple language. I don’t want children to sit and read with a dictionary.

Please describe your creative
process.
I never force myself to write. After completing each book, I free my mind and allow the ideas to come spontaneously. I may research and plan a new book in my mind for years. Then I complete the book in a month or so. I don’t write too many drafts. I wait for some time and then revise.

What are your best and worst
moments as a writer?
When someone said that my books were ghost-written, I felt deeply hurt. Just because a person is rich, it doesn’t mean that she lacks talent. Once a lady of 80 plus came to me and voiced her appreciation. Children are spontaneous in expressing their liking for my work. When readers enjoy my books, I feel happy.

The Bird with Golden Wings,
Sudha Murty,
Penguin Books India, Rs 199

What the Dog Saw,
Malcolm Gladwell,
Penguin, Rs 599

Author of The Tipping Point and Outliers, Gladwell has emerged as an influential
thinker. A common strand in his recent essays: he takes two disparate topics, uses both to illustrate the same insight, and in doing so, throws a new light on each. In this absorbing collection is The Talent Myth, an indictment of Enron’s management culture, encouraged by McKinsey. The Ketchup Conundrum asks why Heinz has a near-monopoly on the titular condiment while supermarkets teem with a multiplicity of mustards.

The Adventure Capitalist,
Conor Woodman,
Pan Books, Rs 319

An economist, Conor chucks up his job and does what we would consider
improbable: selling carpets to tourists in Marrakesh having bought it from the weavers. From there onwards he travels to Sudan to trade in camels with the Egyptians; Zambian coffee to South Africa and so on. Six months later, having returned to London with
a consignment of sustainable wood from Brazil, Conor, who traded the traditional way, realises that he has doubled his investments.

The Heart of a Leader: Insights on the Art of Influence,
Ken Blanchard, Jaico, Rs 195

This book carries sayings on leadership by Ken Blanchard as well as a few others. The left-hand pages have quotes accompanied by an explanation on the corresponding right-hand pages. These thought-provoking sayings should help leaders work in a more productive way and at the same time encourage people under them to follow suit. The book can be consumed either
at one go or one page everyday.

The New Anthem: The Subcontinent in its Own Words,
Ahmede Hussain, Tranquebar, Rs 350

A collection of short stories by established and new post-partition writers from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, this book aims to show how writers connect through the power of stories
and shared human emotions across artificial political borders. Twenty-two major writers of fiction, with their
original narrative styles, reinterpret the region’s turbulent history at both
personal and national levels.