Sudha Murthy receives a wedding invitation with a personal note asking her to attend. At the wedding, she does not recognize the bride or groom. The groom's father explains that after the groom backed out of the wedding when the bride developed a skin condition, the groom read Sudha Murthy's novel "Mahashweta" in the library. The novel helped change his thinking about abandoning his responsibilities. Inspired, the groom decided to marry the bride after all. Sudha Murthy is touched that her novel helped bring the couple together.

1. Wise and Otherwise :
Story 22:
A Wedding to Remember
Gokhale Education Society’s
S.M.R.K. B.K. A.K. Mahila Mahavidyalaya, Nasik-5.
Ms. Geetanjali Gitay
Assistant Professor
Dept. of English
CC English (LL)
T.Y.B.Com. Sem V
Unit 4

2. Story 22. A Wedding to Remember

3. • Sudha Murthy
• A bridegroom
• Bridegroom’s father
• Malati : the bride
•Summary
• As a trustee of the Infosys Foundation, Sudha Murthy gets stacks of letters. The Infosys
Foundation helps people financially for various reasons. According to her experience, both needy
and not needy people write to them.
• On one typical Monday morning, Sudha Murthy’s secretary told her that there was a wedding
invitation card for her for with a personal note attached to it.
• As a college teacher, she used to get so many invitation cards.So she assumed that the card was
from one of her students. The note said that they would consider themselves unfortunate if Sudha
Murthy did not attend the wedding.
• Sudha Murthy couldn’t recall either the boy’s or the girl’s name but she decided to attend the
wedding out of curiosity. It was rainy season an the venue was at the other end of the city.
Characters

4. • It was a typical middle-class wedding with a stage decorated profusely with flowers. Film music
was blaring over the speakers and the numerous children in attendance were not able to play
outside because of the rains and were thus playing hide and seek in the hall.
• Sudha Murthy looked at the couple standing on the dais. She was still unable to remember either
of them. She thought that either one or may be both of them were her students. She did not know
what to do.
•Just then,an elderly man appeoached her. She went with him on the dais and wished the couple a
happy married life. They seemed very happy. When that elderly man took her to the dining hall
Sudha Murthy asked who these people were. The man told Sudha Murthy that he was the groom’s
father. His son liked Malati, the bride and they arranged the wedding. After the engagement,
Malati developed leucoderma. His son backed out of marriage. They felt very sad and asked him
what he would have done if Malati had got leucoderma after marriage. Her family was worried
about her future.
• During the same time the son began to visit the library often. After a month he came back and
told that he was ready to marry Malati. All were happily surprised and that day was the marriage.
Summary (cntd)

5. • Sudha Murthy still did not understand her connection with all of that. Groom’s father told her
that in the library, her son read Sudha Murthy’s novel ‘Mahashweta’ . The situation of his son was
similar. He read the novel at least ten times and understood the plight of the girl. He took a
month to decide that he did not want to be like the man in the novel who shed his responsibilities
only to regret later. Sudha Murthy’s novel changed his thinking.
•Finally, Sudha Murthy could put the pieces together. Then the groom’s father handed over a saree
as a gift to her. Malati had brought the saree for Sudha Murthy. Sudha Murthy felt very happy to
know that her novel could change somebody’s life. She closes by saying that whenever she wears
that saree she remember’s Malati’s face and the cover page of “ Mahashweta”. That is the most
precious saree for her.
Summary (cntd)

6. Text Content Source :
1 .Wise and Otherwise, Murthy Sudha, Penguine India, New Delhi, Reprint(2006).