Hyderabad: Sudha Murty, an author and philanthropist, who received the Padma Bhusan award for social work last year and Padma Shri in 2006 is known for her simplicity and candid comments on public platforms. Wife of Infosys founder, Narayana Murty and mother-in-law of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, she is the chairperson of Infosys Foundation and has several books to her credit.
Born on August 19, 1950 to a Kannada-speaking family, Murty's father was a surgeon and mother a school teacher. She once told a television show that her decision to pursue engineering in 1968 was not much welcomed by her relatives as they thought nobody would marry her since it was a male-dominated stream.
After cracking the entrance with highest marks and joining college, she was the only girl among the 599 boys in her class. Her principal had asked her to wear saree and not go to the canteen or interact with her male classmates. However, after she ranked first in class, boys started talking to her.
When she was in her M Tech final year, she wanted to go to USA but came across a job vacancy at TELCO but women were not allowed to apply. She complained about the discrimination to none other than JRD Tata by writing a postcard to him. Although she never imagined she would get a reply, she landed up getting recruited in the company.
She thus became the first female engineer to work at TELCO. She married Narayana Murty while she was still working at TELCO in 1980. It was she who gave her husband Rs 10,000 from her savings and three year's time when he wanted to start Infosys.
On her last day at TELCO, Murty had an encounter with JRD Tata and following the latter's advice to give back to the society, she was encouraged to take up social work. She was a philanthropist even when she was a child. At the age of six, she helped a blind man cross the road. Also, she loves to care for her furry friends.
In another TV show, she said that the immigration officer in UK did not believe her after she wrote '10 Downing Street', PM's official residence, in her form when she had gone to visit her daughter Akshata, Rishi Sunak's wife.
Sharing an anecdote, she said that few years ago when she was standing in the business class queue in her simple salwar kameez, her co-passengers thought she was standing there by mistake and called her 'cattle-class people'. After being greeted by the crew and allowed to proceed, she told the women that work and not money defines class.
Murty is a film buff who prefers late night shows more than watching movies at home. She made a foray into acting with her debut in Maratha film 'Pitruroon', which is an adaptation of her Kannada novel, 'Rhun'.
Murty always carries a bag full of eatables and cooking items whenever she goes abroad. She once said that being a vegetarian she is worried that the same spoon would be used for serving vegetarian and non vegetarian food and so prefers carrying her own eatables wherever she went.
Sudha Murty has become a household name in India.
