Sudha Murty - Rishona Chopra

Sudha Murty was born in 1950 in Shiggaon in north Karnataka. She has written nine novels, four technical books, three travelogues, one short story collection, and two non-fiction pieces, including How I Taught My Grandmother to Read and Other Stories. 

Other books by her are - Grandma's Bag Of Stories, The Magic Of The Lost Temple, Grandparents Bag Of Stories, The Upside Down King, Gopi Diaries, The Man From The Egg, How The Sea Became Salty, How The Mango Got Its Magic, The Sage with two horns, The Magic Drum and many more.

Wise and Otherwise, initially published in English, is now available in several Indian languages—Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati, Oriya, Bengali and Kashmiri.

Wise and Otherwise is a book about heartwarming stories with a touch of reality. This book gives a clear account of her work and approach to it. An accomplished storyteller in Kannada, Sudha Murty wrote for the first time in English to inaugurate a fortnightly column in the New Sunday Express. She focused on her experiences, travels, and encounters with ordinary people with extraordinary minds.

From stories of honesty to humbleness, from humanity to rudeness. About a boy's honesty despite such poverty. Greediness despite richness. The opposites meet, and the harsh truth is shown. This book encounters real-life stories that leave a profound mark on our minds.

Rishona Chopra
Grade VI
Gyanshree School

Responsibility - Rishona Chopra

Responsibility is vital in a classroom, not only for students but for teachers too. Responsibility is taking ownership of one's actions. It is to accept your mistake, help around and work hard. Responsibility assumes that you are the cause and the solution to the problem. When we take responsibility, we should take it with total commitment and honesty. We shouldn't have a responsibility to others but to ourselves too.

At my earlier school, we did an activity, not a movement but a daily exercise. Every day, after lunch, we had to clean the class. We got duties of dusting, sweeping and mopping. Whoever finished their commitment would get to play outside. This taught us responsibility; my favourite task was to mop the floor. If you try it once, you'll realize it's fun to mop the floor, unlike sweeping. Even cleaning the bathroom is an excellent duty, well, only if it's a small one!

An important part is responsible for our actions. We all make mistakes and some wrongdoings, and instead of covering them up with thousands of lies, we should make it easy with one truth and take responsibility for our actions.

Rishona Chopra
Grade VI
Gyanshree School

The Tribal Warriors Of Bharat - Rishona Chopra

'In this, our 75th year of Independence … we needed quality literature around our great tribal freedom fighters. This book is a genuinely commendable start in that direction.

—Arjun Munda, Minister of Tribal Affairs

Our first war of Independence was not in 1857.
In fact, tribal mutinies against the British began at least 75 years before the 1857 revolution. These battles were fought with traditional bows and arrows and spears and predated the reported political movement that came to the fore in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

As we complete 75 years of Independence, it is only fair to acknowledge that a parallel freedom movement existed in our far-flung villages and jungles, away from the mainstream freedom movement recognised in the books of history.

The Tribal Warriors Of Bharat shows how we see only those we are shown, but behind the freedom of India, there are many unseen soldiers or, shall I say, fighters whose stories were never heard. 

I haven't read this book, but after reading the synopsis and the first few pages and meeting the author, I am super excited to read about it!!

Rishona Chopra
Grade VI
Gyanshree School