Sign-In
Cart
Simpli Ma's Story
Paperback
Biographies GeneralHistorical Figures
Publisher: Mathew Daniel
Published: Jan 31 2026
Pages: 192
Weight: 0.43
Height: 0.44 Width: 5.00 Depth: 8.00
Language: English
Simpli Ma's Story (SMS) spans several decades. It starts with an accident: the youngest of the family, Rachel or Rahel, is seen on stage as a child, chasing butterflies behind her home in Travancore (now Kerala). She falls on a sharp rock and slips into a coma for days. The Vaidya, the Ayurvedic doctor, next door, restores her, only for poverty to force her out of school at twelve.
That relentless, never-give-up twelve-year-old in the mid-1920s, turned the script and how, became an assistant nurse trainee in Madurai - land of temples - in another state, 300 km away, at Erskine Hospital on the Vagai. It transformed her!
This is her story, told with humor, honesty, and panache. It is set in a small Mar Thoma Syrian Orthodox Christian community in Kozhencherry, Kerala, in the 1920s, and narrated by Mathew, the youngest in the Orthodox Christian family.
With a passion for reading and storytelling, and an eye for detail, I bring to life my mother's eventful childhood starting with the accident and is a testament to resilience in the face of unimaginable hardship following the accident when poverty cut short her's and her older sister's schooling at twelve and against all odds decides to start assistant nurse training in Madurai in the land of enchanting temples at Erskine Hospital on the Vagai River, 300 km away, out of state. It explores the unspoken family bond forged by fate and tempered by adversity.
Author's Notes: This is my third book exploring themes of identity, culture, and the complexities of human relationships.
My first book, My Father's House (MFH), is a memoir-based book published in 2024. My Father's House, set in the bustling Bombay of the 1950s and narrated by Mathew, the youngest in an Orthodox Christian family. Led by his generous and resilient parents, Daniel and Rachel, the family of five and two or three job-seeking guests at a time live in a cramped, third-floor tenement whose windows overlook the city's engaging chaos, which, in Mathew's observation, imitates their own lives, the quiet confidence running in the background like a silent river, amidst the joys and struggles of daily living. Despite their limited means, his parents welcomed the less fortunate to stay for free in their one-room tenement while they searched for jobs.
Steeplechase and Other Stories, biographically based, is a collection of 15 short stories published in 2025. One story, Walking My Baby Back Home, features my granddaughter after her first day of kindergarten, when we encountered a cicada with a broken wing, and how a teaching moment reversed roles. Another is about a church I helped build, which ended up without a steeple.
Simpli Ma's Story is my third book, a similar work in the same genre, and it is about my mother, an uncommon woman.
Beyond My Father's House (in progress) is a novel about a friendship forged in India and renewed in the USA during the time of the Oklahoma bombing in 1995, which took 168 lives. It delves into the complexities of cross-cultural relationships, personal growth, and the enduring power of friendship.
Also from
Daniel, Mathew
Also in
Biographies General
Bluesland: Portraits of Thirteen Major American Blues Masters
Pete Welding (ED.)
Toby Byron (ED.)
Hardcover
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
The Children of Athena: Greek Intellectuals in the Age of Rome: 150 Bc0-400 AD
Freeman, Charles
Hardcover
Make It a Double: From Wretched to Wondrous: Tales of One Woman's Lifelong Discovery of Whisky
Sackier, Shelley
Hardcover
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
Isaacson, Walter
Hardcover
An Enemy Such as This: Larry Casuse and the Fight for Native Liberation in One Family on Two Continents Over Three Centuries
Correia, David
Hardcover
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
Cooper, Christian
Hardcover
The Secret Life of the Savoy: Glamour and Intrigue at the World's Most Famous Hotel
Williams, Olivia
Paperback
The Badger: The Life of Bernard Hinault and the Legacy of French Cycling
Fotheringham, William
Paperback
The Devil's Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich
Kinney, David
Wittman, Robert K.
Paperback
Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Womens Political Culture, 1830-1900
Sklar, Kathryn Kish
Paperback
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
Purnell, Sonia
Hardcover
Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
Ehrenreich, Barbara
Paperback
Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives
Cordingly, David
Paperback
The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy: A Family Memoir of Scandal and Greed in the Meat Industry
Cherington, Gretchen
Paperback
Gift of Power: The Life and Teachings of a Lakota Medicine Man
Lame Deer, Chief Archie Fire
Erdoes, Richard
Paperback
My Own Devices: True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love
Dessa Wander
Hardcover
Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice
Giuffre, Virginia Roberts
Hardcover
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself
Lawson, Jenny
Hardcover
Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor
Kuehn, Christine
Hardcover
Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground
Dohrn, Zayd Ayers
Hardcover
A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon
Fedarko, Kevin
Paperback
Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
Colloff, Pamela
Hardcover