The first book that I read was “The Daughter from a Wishing Tree” which showcases different kinds of stories 

about women in Indian mythology. The author of the book is Sudha Murthy. She is an Indian educator, 

author and philanthropist. She is also the Chairman of Infosys Foundation. Sudha Murthy ma’am was 

awarded with Padma Shri by Government of India in 2006.

The book “The Daughter from a Wishing Tree: Unusual Tales about Women in Mythology” is an excellent 

book. The collection of stories features enchanting and fearless women who frequently led wars on behalf of 

the gods against asuras. Women were the backbone of their families and makers of their own families. There 

are many fascinating stories of women in our mythology like Parvati, Lakshmi, Ashokasundari, Mandodari, 

Damayanthi, Arundathi, Sanjana and many more.

I felt very excited to know about the things like, “How the river Ganga took its birth?”, “How did river 

Saraswati and river Yamuna started flowing on the earth?”. These help us to know the true origin of their 

existence on earth, their importance and value.

My favourite line in this book is ” Knowledge with compassion is the supreme power that is helpful to 

mankind”. These words were said by Vashista when he was conveying the importance of knowledge to 

Vishwamitra. Vashista says gaining knowledge is more important than earning more wealth, and expanding 

the kingdom. The knowledge we gain in our life’s should be useful and helpful to others.

Another interesting story I felt the best was about the first clone in the world created by Sanjana. Sanjana was 

responsible for the birth of Shani God. I was really surprised when I read the story, because we usually have 

very bad opinion about Shani God as he creates a lot of problems in life and makes our life miserable. But, 

once if we read this story and know about his birth and the problems he faced in his life, our opinion towards 

Shani God will change.

Each story in this book will make us learn some important principle and value required 

in our life. It is important to know