Local Author’s Remarkable Novel
Chundru Murthi’s The Doctor from Madras
• • • • • • • • March 2025 • • • • • • • •
San Francisco author Chandru Murthi’s remarkable first novel, “The Doctor From Madras,” is filled with memorable characters and surprising plot twists. Set in his native India, it brings to light a time when colonialism was crumbling, and change was in the air. The story presents a dysfunctional family — inspired yet highly fictionalized from his own — that prefers to keep traditions in place. While its young hero is on his own for the first time, attending medical school in Madras, he is pulled into the New World as he decides what he truly wants.
Author Murthi has spent most of his life in the United States. As an engineer and sustainability consultant by training, his left-brain activity is counterbalanced by working in theatre for many years, maintaining a hard-to-categorize blog, and writing his first novel. Returning to San Francisco after nearly two decades in Brooklyn, Mr. Murthi is also the author of the article, The Poet, The Physicist, and the Immigrant, a true story of the quirky characters in the creation of the first commercial database in the United States. Below, the author responds to questions posed by Westside Observer arts columnist Linda Ayres-Frederick.
LAF: What inspired you to write this novel?
CM: After my mother’s death, I found legal papers (mentioned in the book) about a family event I had no idea of. I was so intrigued by this that I decided it was worth writing about.
LAF: What do you love most about writing?
CM: Having only written a blog before, creative writing was a challenge. I learned the rules as I went along, helpful classes were a great help. I found that understanding rules, but finding when they could be broken was a revelation.
LAF: When did you first begin writing?
CM: My blog – ‘02 for a few years. This novel was started in ‘10, I think.
LAF: What do you consider to be your strengths as a writer?
CM: I understand the concept of creating scenes and beats (as in theatre.) I think I do dialog well, perhaps again, a result of theatre experience.
LAF: What of your professional accomplishments are you most proud of?
CM: Well, I worked on the first widely used database system, but that’s ancient history!
LAF: When you run out of ideas, if ever, where do you seek inspiration?
CM: Reading novels, mostly. And dreams have helped. My second novel started out as a two-person scene from one. I later liked the characters so much that it developed into the full story.
LAF: Who would you say has helped you the most professionally?
CM: The group I worked with on my first job – names would not be relevant.
LAF: And personally?
CM: Many friends who read early versions! Justin Torres (“We the Animals”) who greatly encouraged me to continue the novel when I was stuck for quite a while.
LAF: Who are your heroes?
CM: Authors: Orwell, Graham Greene, Jane Austen. Jane Jacobs who wrote the seminal Life and Death of Great Cities.
LAF: If you were to give advice to someone wanting to be a writer today, what words of encouragement and/or warning would you offer him/her?
CM: Stick with it in times of blockage. Revising is always an option when stuck.
LAF: If you weren’t a writer/computer specialist, what do you think you would have enjoyed doing?
CM: I was brought up pretty left-brained. Architect, perhaps, as there’s a creative side to the mechanical part. Or a theatre director!
LAF: How would you say your other profession has aided you in your writing and vice versa?
CM: Programming is logical and detailed and, often requires iterations of the same program. I guess the attention-to-detail part helps greatly in writing, and making many revisions of the same work became second nature.
LAF: What’s up next?
CM: Finding an agent or publisher for my “eco-thriller,” “The Trouble With Waste.” Flexible, who published Doctor, only accepts literary fiction.
LAF: Thanks so much for talking with us and for your fabulous writing!
“The Doctor from Madras” by Chandru Murthi is available through www.flexiblepub.com. or ask for it at your local bookstore! A book signing with Mr. Murthi reading excerpts will be held at Bird & Beckett, 653 Chenery Street (SF Glen Park) Thursday, March 27th 7pm. Free Admission.
Linda Ayres-Frederick, VP San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
March 2025
