Sweeping across generations, continents, and cultures, The Doctor from Madras (Flexible Press, 2025; paper $19) is the epic story of one family and the collision between old ways and a changing world, the debut novel by Chandru Murthi.

“In this multi-generational saga, Chandru Murthi weaves together a patchwork quilt of stories involving agonizing family secrets, the birth pangs of a modern nation and the emergence of a new diaspora into the 21st century. This is a stunningly well-crafted story, and a debut novel to celebrate!” — Raza Mir, author of Murder at the Mushaira

A long-time San Franciscan, Chandru Murthi was born in India and has spent most of his life in the United States. He is an engineer and sustainability consultant by training. This left-brain activity has been counterbalanced by working in theatre for many years, maintaining a difficult-to-categorize blog, and writing this, his first novel. The Doctor from Madras is a highly fictionalized version of dysfunctional family history, which saved him from having to invent many major plot points.

He is the author of the article, “The Poet, the Physicist, and the Immigrant,” a true story of the colorful characters involved in the creation of the first commercial database in the United States. He has just completed his second novel, an eco-thriller, The Trouble With Waste, set in New York City.

A portion of the proceeds from The Doctor from Madras goes to Hindus for Human Rights, a nonprofit organization advocating for pluralism, civil, and human rights in South Asia and North America, providing a Hindu voice of resistance to caste, Hindu nationalism, racism, and all forms of bigotry and oppression.