As she goes about her work with the villagers, slum dwellers 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.

 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