Contents: Preface. 1. The old man and his God. 2. Freedom of speech. 3. Horegallu. 4. The way you look at it. 5. A tale of two brothers. 6. The journey. 7. An Officegoer's Dilemma. 8. The deserving candidate. 9. The business of philanthropy. 10. A helping hand. 11. True shades of nature. 12. Made in heaven. 13. The grateful tenant. 14. A foreigner, always. 15. The line of separation. 16. A Buddhist on airport road. 17. Sweet hospitality. 18. Friends forever. 19. The perfect life. 20. Hundred per cent free. 21. Two faces of poverty. 22. India, the Holy Land. 23. Mother's love. 24. Village encounters. 25. May you be the mother of a hundred children.

"As she goes about her work with the villagers, slumdwellers and the common men and women of India, Sudha Murty, writer, social worker and teacher, listens to them and records what they have to say. Their accounts of the struggles and hardships which they have at times overcome, and at other times been overwhelmed by, are put together in this book. A blind old man in a little Shiva Temple offers the author shelter and peace in the midst of a storm and emerges as the most generous, unselfish soul she has ever met. A little stone bench under a banyan tree in a village in Karnataka is the perfect place for travellers to rest and forget their burdens for a while as they chat with the man sitting there patiently listening to them, a better counsellor than one can find anywhere in the city.

There are stories about people's generosity--and selfishness--in times of natural disasters like the tsunami; women struggling to speak out in a world that refuses to listen to them; and tales of young professionals trying to find their feet as they climb up the corporate ladder.

Told simply and directly from the heart, The Old Man and His God is a collection of snapshots of the varied facets of human nature and a mirror to the souls of the people of India."