Breaking Through - A Memoir by Isher Judge Ahluwalia
Isher Judge Ahluwalia has been a member of the Advisory Council of the Bharti Institute of Public Policy at ISB and has been to our campus a couple of times. When I heard about her book, Breaking Through, I wanted to read since I knew very little about her.
Isher grew up in Kolkata as the ninth child of a family of 11 children to Sikh parents who originally hailed from Lahore. Due to sheer hard work and the desire to retain control over her own life, she managed to convince her parents to let her pursue undergraduate studies in Presidency. This led to her coming to Delhi to study at DSE and eventually to Boston where she got her PhD from MIT. I am reminded of an incident when Montek Ahluwalia was visiting ISB to deliver the graduation address in 2007. I was escorting him and as we entered the elevator, the person inside greeted him as Dr Ahluwalia. He immediately responded – “that’s my wife”.
For more reasons than one, her life is a story of inspiration for all young people. As an autobiography, the book speaks to you in first person and you feel like you are a part of her life journey, both personal and professional. You also glimpses into her personal friendships. Like her friendship with Sudha Murthy. “When visiting my house in Delhi, she (Sudha Murthy) once remarked that she thought of me as being very wealthy. Very surprised, I asked why. She responded that in her view, a wealthy person was someone who had lots of books, and Montek and I had a great collected!”
She writes about her illness in the last chapter and the last two lines are very moving “Many individuals, many women, many from less-privileged backgrounds will shatter glass ceilings that still exist. They will write their own stories. For those into whose hands this book finds its way, I hope my life has some lessons of interest”.
I picked up this autobiography on September 25 and read a few pages. Isher Judge Ahluwalia died of brain cancer on September 26, 5 days short of what would have been her 75th birthday.