a memorable incident

It was probably the April of 1974. Bangalore was getting warm and gulmohars were blooming at the IISc campus. I was the only girl in my postgraduate department and was staying at the ladies’ hostel. Other girls were pursuing research in different departments of Science.
I was looking forward to going abroad to complete a Doctorate in computer science. I had been offered scholarships from Universities in the US . I had not thought of taking up a job in India .
One day, while on the way to my hostel from our Lecture-hall complex, I saw an advertisement on the notice board. It was a Standard job-requirement notice from the famous automobile company Telco (Now Tata Motors). It stated that the company required young, bright engineers, Hardworking and with an excellent academic background, etc.
At the bottom was a small line: “Lady Candidates need not apply.”
I read it and was very upset. For the first time in my life I was up against gender discrimination.
Though I was not keen on taking up the job, I saw it as a challenge. I had done extremely well in academics, better than most of my male peers. Little did I know then that in real life academic Excellence is not enough to be successful.
After reading the notice I went fuming to my room. I decided to inform the topmost person in Telco’s management about the injustice the company was perpetrating. I got a postcard and started to write, but there was a problem: I did not know who headed Telco.
I thought it must be one of the Tatas. I knew JRD Tata was the head of the Tata Group; I had seen his pictures in newspapers (actually, Sumant Moolgaokar was the company’s chairman then). I took the card, addressed it to JRD and started writing. To this day I remember clearly what I wrote.
“The great Tatas have always been pioneers. They are the people who started the basic infrastructure industries in India , such as iron and steel, chemicals, textiles and locomotives. They have cared for higher education in Indiasince 1900 and they were responsible for the establishment of the Indian Institute of Science. Fortunately, I study there. But I am surprised how a company such as Telco is discriminating on the basis of gender.”
I posted the letter and forgot about it. Less than 10 days later, I received a telegram stating that I had to appear for an interview at Telco’s Pune facility at the company’s expense. I was taken aback by the telegram. My hostel mate told me I should use the opportunity to go to Pune free of cost and buy them the famous Pune saris for cheap! I collected Rs 30 each from everyone who wanted a sari. When I look back, I feel like laughing at the reasons for my going, but back then they seemed good enough to make the trip.
It was my first visit to Pune and I immediately fell in love with the city. To this day it remains dear to me. I feel as much at home in Pune as I do in Hubli, my hometown. The place changed my life in so many ways. As directed, I went to Telco’s Pimpri office for the interview.
There were six people on the panel and I realised then that this was serious business. This is the girl who wrote to JRD,” I heard somebody whisper as soon as I entered the room. By then I knew for sure that I would not get the job. The realisation abolished all fear from my mind, so I was rather cool while the interview was being conducted.
Even before the interview started, I reckoned the panel was biased, so I told them, rather impolitely, “I hope this is only a technical interview.”
They were taken aback by my rudeness, and even today I am ashamed about my attitude. The panel asked me technical questions and I answered all of them.
Then an elderly gentleman with an affectionate voice told me, “Do you know why we said lady candidates need not apply? The reason is that we have never employed any ladies on the shop floor. This is not a co-ed college; this is a factory. When it comes to academics, you are a first ranker throughout. We appreciate that, but people like you should work in research laboratories.”
I was a young girl from small-town Hubli. My world had been a limited place. I did not know the ways of large corporate houses and their difficulties, so I answered, “But you must start somewhere, otherwise no woman will ever be able to work in your factories.”
Finally, after a long interview, I was told I had been successful. So this was what the future had in store for me. Never had I thought I would take up a job in Pune. I met a shy young man from Karnataka there, we became good friends and we got married.
It was only after joining Telco that I realized who JRD was: the uncrowned king of Indian industry. Now I was scared, but I did not get to meet him till I was transferred to Bombay . One day I had to show some reports to Mr Moolgaokar, our chairman, who we all knew as SM. I was in his office on the first floor of BombayHouse (the Tata headquarters) when, suddenly JRD walked in. That was the first time I saw “appro JRD”. Appro means “our” in Gujarati. This was the affectionate term by which people at Bombay House called him.
I was feeling very nervous, remembering my postcard episode. SM introduced me nicely, “Jeh (that’s what his close associates called him), this young woman is an engineer and that too a postgraduate.
She is the first woman to work on the Telco shop floor.” JRD looked at me. I was praying he would not ask me any questions about my interview (or the postcard that preceded it).
Thankfully, he didn’t. Instead, he remarked. “It is nice that girls are getting into engineering in our country. By the way, what is your name?”
“When I joined Telco I was Sudha Kulkarni, Sir,” I replied. “Now I am Sudha Murthy.” He smiled and kindly smile and started a discussion with SM. As for me, I almost ran out of the room. After that I used to see JRD on and off. He was the Tata Group chairman and I was merely an engineer. There was nothing that we had in common. I was in awe of him.
One day I was waiting for Murthy, my husband, to pick me up after office hours. To my surprise I saw JRD standing next to me. I did not know how to react. Yet again I started worrying about that postcard. Looking back, I realise JRD had forgotten about it. It musthave been a small incident for him, but not so for me.
“Young lady, why are you here?” he asked. “Office time is over.” I said, “Sir, I’m waiting for my husband to come and pick me up.” JRD said, “It is getting dark and there’s no one in the corridor.
I’ll wait with you till your husband comes.”
I was quite used to waiting for Murthy, but having JRD waiting alongside made me extremely uncomfortable.
I was nervous. Out of the corner of my eye I looked at him. He wore a simple white pant and shirt. He was old, yet his face was glowing. There wasn’t any air of superiority about him. I was thinking, “Look at this person. He is a chairman, a well-respected man in our country and he is waiting forthe sake of an ordinary employee.”
Then I saw Murthy and I rushed out. JRD called and said, “Young lady, tell your husband never to make his wife wait again.”
In 1982 I had to resign from my job at Telco. I was reluctant to go, but I really did not have a choice. I was coming down the steps of Bombay House after wrapping up my final settlement when I saw JRD coming up. He was absorbed in thought. I wanted to say goodbye to him, so I stopped. He saw me and paused.
Gently, he said, “So what are you doing, Mrs Kulkarni?”(That was the way he always addressed me.) “Sir, I am leaving Telco.”
“Where are you going?” he asked. “Pune, Sir. My husband is starting a company called Infosys and I’m shifting to Pune.”
“Oh! And what will you do when you are successful.”
“Sir, I don’t know whether we will be successful.”“Never start with diffidence,” he advised me. “Always start with confidence. When you are successful you must give back to society. Society gives us so much; we must reciprocate. I wish you all the best.”
Then JRD continued walking up the stairs. I stood there for what seemed like a millennium. That was the last time I saw him alive. Many years later I met Ratan Tata in the same Bombay House, occupying the chair JRD once did. I told him of my many sweet memories of working with Telco. Later, he wrote to me, “It was nice hearing about Jeh from you. The sad part is that he’s not alive to see you today.”
I consider JRD a great man because, despite being an extremely busy person, he valued one postcard written by a young girl seeking justice. He must have received thousands of letters everyday. He could have thrown mine away, but he didn’t do that. He respected the intentions of that unknown girl, who had neither influence nor money, and gave her an opportunity in his company. He did not merely give her a job; he changed her life and mindset forever.
Close to 50 per cent of the students in today’s engineering colleges are girls. And there are women on the shop floor in many industry segments. I see these changes and I think of JRD. If at all time stops and asks me what I want from life, I would say I wish JRD were alive today to see how the company we started has grown. He would have enjoyed it wholeheartedly.
My love and respect for the House of Tata remains undiminished by the passage of time. I always looked up to JRD. I saw him as a role model for his simplicity, his generosity, his kindness and the care he took of his employees. Those blue eyes always reminded me of the sky; they had the same vastness and magnificence.

Sudha Murthy on Infosys and life's values

It's her passion and commitment to use what she has been blessed with for the benefit of others that keeps Sudha Murthy ticking. Very few are aware of Sudha Murthy's achievements.
She has single-handedly evangelizing the move towards corporate social responsibility. She has worked almost for a decade to change the lives of children in the heart of rural Karnataka by giving them access to food and education.
She is an author of 92 books in almost every Indian language to her credit. She is one of India's most celebrated entrepreneurs. Here she speaks her mind, shies away from the limelight and truly practices what she preaches.
Founder, Infosys [Get Quote] Foundation, Sudha Murthy, told CNBC-TV18, "In life's journey, we all meet strange people and undergo many experiences that touch us and sometimes even change us. If you have a sensitive mind, you will see your life too in the vast storehouse of stories. For me, it is something closest to my heart. Initially, I was a mother to it but somewhere along the line, it has become the mother and I the child."
Life lessons from Narayana Murthy
Excerpts from an interview given to CNBC-TV18:
You are in a sense the angel investor behind one of India's largest entrepreneurial success stories. It was your Rs 10,000 that started Infosys. But purely as a person, what is this success story?
Sudha Murthy: How do you define success? I gave Rs 10,000 not thinking I would get a great return. Here is a man who is dreaming of a company and he told me without your support it would be difficult for me to start and I helped him. That's what I considered and nothing more.
Did you believe in the vision that he had? Did you ever think that Infosys was going to turn out to be what it is today?
Sudha Murthy: No, I only knew that Murthy is a very honest and hardworking person and he wants to do something and he told me I require three years of hard work from you and I will not be able earn. You'll have to manage the family and give me the initial investment.
I said, okay, let him do it. When you don't have many things, then you don't get scared.
He also gave you choice and he said that both of you couldn't be at Infosys together. He gave you the choice of joining Infosys but you chose to pull back and not do it -- at any point of time did you think that maybe you would have liked to have done on?
Sudha Murthy: No, it was very hard for me, it was not a easy decision because in 1968 I joined an engineering college and in 1972 I graduated. There was not a single girl in the university.
For a person like me who was so career conscious and who was so fond of technical things, it was very hard. But Murthy being a very strong person, he said it's either you or me.
When he said that, then I thought practically. If I am in, then he is out and when you start a company you have to run around, stay away from the family, everything you have to do and I am a woman, I couldn't be away from the family and the children.
Secondly, I knew children require their mother at an early stage of life and not so much when they grow up. Whatever value system you teach, it's only in those crucial years. So, therefore I said okay and I made the decision but my heart was very heavy. It took many years for me to reconcile to this.
But couldn't you have gone back once your children grew up?
Sudha Murthy: By that time, I realised it is not only technical thing that's great in life, there are many more things in life, which are very important. So, when one window was closed, God opened a door to me and that is the Infosys Foundation.
Have your relationships become transactional? Do people now talk to you only to associate with you because they want something from you?
Sudha Murthy: It becomes so hard to find a genuine friend or a genuine relation because everything is a transaction in one or other. It could be money, it could be job, it could be an association and somewhere I feel I lost the golden days.
So it's been a lonely journey, isn't it?
Sudha Murthy: Of course, when your husband builds a company like Infosys along with his teammates it is like a tapasya -- that means 100% concentration on his work -- and God is so intelligent, that irrespective of your status or gender, he gives everybody only 24 hours and Mr Murthy used all these 24 hours for one purpose and that is Infosys.
What was left for me and the children was hardly anything and I became like a single parent with two children. Murthy never knew which class they were in and he never went to any PTA. He only came to know when the children grew up and went to college. I had to struggle with their PTA, their progress reports, their holidays.
Is it also because you created your own identity besides being Mrs Narayana Murthy, which is what has kept you going for so long?
Sudha Murthy: Because I believe that every human being should run their own marathon and this was taught to me when I was a young girl by my grandfather who was a Sanskrit scholar.
He told a very beautiful shloka. He said Krishna is respected not because he is son of Vasudeva, not because he is the husband of Rukmini, not because he is the father of Aniruddha, not because he is Yashoda's adopted son, but because Krishna himself was a different person.
Similarly, in real life, it is nice that you are related, you are married and all those things, but you are what you are and I always believed in my own strength, my own weaknesses and my own way of thinking, which helped me a lot to achieve what I liked.
Do you consider yourself a feminist?
Sudha Murthy: I really do not know how to define a real feminist. I felt when I was 23 years old, there was gender discrimination and I felt I must inform Mr JRD Tata because I was studying in their institute.
The greatness is not me writing a letter but it was Mr JRD Tata, who was great. He was a chairman and a big man who has many companies and he gets a postcard from an unknown girl hailing from a middle class doctor family, from a small town known as Hubli. She writes a letter and he accepts it in a positive way and he said that this girl should be called for an interview -- that made me feel like a very great person.
You feel like a misfit in corporate India's jetset crowd?
Sudha Murthy: Probably, because I am definitely not in the corporate scenario.
Did Mr. Murthy ever say that maybe you should try?
Sudha Murthy: Never ever. Actually, both of us have this equation that we never criticize or cross each other's path. For example, Mr Murthy never tells me you should not give money to these people or you should give money to those people.
And not even once, in my 10 years in the Foundation, Murthy has insisted for any project money should be given either personally or officially.
But have you been able to translate your philosophy and the way that you have been brought up and the way that you have lived your life to your children as well?
Sudha Murthy: They won't see it exactly that way. But to some extent they can understand and they can follow.
One year I remember, my son sent me a birthday greeting which said: 'Every mother works for their children, my mom works for somebody else's child and Happy Birthday.' And these soft words came from a young boy of 20. Probably, it is the love or compassion he has seen and learnt in his formative years.
Apart from the philanthropy, you have said that Mr Murthy has become very serious now, but do you still manage to take out time for the indulgences that you used to enjoy -- you like going to movies and enjoy music, does any of that still happen?
Sudha Murthy: No, Murthy does not come to the movies at all actually -- maybe for 20-25 years we had not seen any movie. Recently, I took him for a movie and he was saying how we should improve the quality, now he looks at everything in a manner of how we should improve the quality, how we should get an Oscar.
He looks for excellence in everything. Murthy does not enjoy what he used to enjoy before.
So he is a different man, he is not the same man you have married?
Sudha Murthy: Yes, he is different today.

Can you identify the three women in the photograph below?
In 1981, when N R Narayana Murthy led six other techies to float their dream venture called Infosys, they had no money and only their wives' support. And that support led to the founding and then the phenomenal growth of one of India's most loved companies.
Murthy and his friends did not have money, but they had something better: dreams, courage and conviction to move ahead with Infosys, through struggles and the constant fear whether their start-up would rake in business and money.
Murthy was the man who took final decisions that proved to be right always. And Murthy was the first one to shift from his Pune base to Bangalore when Infosys got it first client -- Data Basics Corporation from the US.
Two other founders -- Nandan Nilekani and S D Shibulal -- were the next to move to Bangalore.
As they struggled it out with the first Infosys days in Bangalore, Murthy, Nilekani and Shibulal took a firm decision: that their wives would not be involved in the running of the company.
Their wives -- Sudha Murthy, Rohini Nilekani and Kumari Shibulal -- fully supported the husbands, and baby-sat at home.
There was no luxury, only struggle, day in and day out. No car or phone. Murthy later recalled that it was not the luxuries of life, but the passion to create something new and innovative that made them move on.
But despite the struggles, the Murthys, Nilekanis and Shibulals took time out to go out to have fun on picnics in the picturesque Bangalore those days.
Today, Sudha, Rohini and Kumari are also among the richest women in India, considering their shareholding in Infosys.
What do the women behind the Infosys dreamers do these days with so much money?
Sudha Murthy:
"I take pleasure in giving. I feel that I have a reasonably good amount of money for all of which I don't have much use. So I thought I should share it with my poorer countrymen."
Sudha heads Infosys Foundation, the charity and social services wing of Infosys.
In her right, she is also reputed software engineer. In the early struggling days of Infosys, Sudha would leave her children -- daughter Akshata and son Rohan -- in the company of Nilekani's wife Rohini and do part-time job for Infosys, writing software codes.
An ME Electrical from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, she started her career as a Development Engineer with TELCO. Later, she taught Computer Science to B.Sc and MCA students in Bangalore University.
A prolific writer in both Kannada and English, she has been a columnist for several English and Kannada dailies and also has 19 books to her credit -- among them novels, travelogues, technical books and collections of real-life experiences.
She is probably one of the few Kannada writers to have her work translated into so many Indian languages.
Rohini Nilekani:
Her husband Nandan Nilekani runs Infosys. A fiercely private person, Rohini -- who worked as a journalist for several years -- is actively involved with several non-profit organisations in Bangalore.
She has also set up an endowment fund called Arghyam, (which means 'offering' in Sanskrit) that supports endeavours in health, education, and especially in equity in access to water for all.
She is also:
Chairperson for Akshara Foundation, the goal of which is 'Every child in Bangalore in school and learning well.'
Co-founder of Pratham Books, a non-profit publishing enterprise to produce high quality, low cost books for children in several Indian languages.
On the board of directors of Pratham India Education Initiative.
On the board of Sanghamithra Rural Financial Services and has funded its first microcredit program for the urban poor.
Last, not the least, Rohini is a prolific reader and writer, a quality she inherited while working as journalist with Sunday and India Today.
Few years back, she published her novel, a medical thriller called Stillborn, which was brought out by Penguin Books.
Kumari Shibulal:
Her husband S D Shibulal is the co-founder of Infosys, and currently director and head of Worldwide Customer Delivery, and continues to play a pivotal role in Infosys's astounding growth.
Shibulal and his wife Kumari live in a South Shore suburb of Boston, MA, with their two children.
But often, Kumari is in India, especially in Bangalore as she is the chairperson of Akshaya, a charitable trust they founded to help needy children in India. Akshaya offers scholarships, and has sponsored over 1,000 children for free heart surgery in the year 2002.
"What we do is nothing but a drop in the ocean and if we do not do it the ocean is only a drop less," says Kumari Shibulal of her Akshaya Trust.
Kumari is also a sports lover, and especially of India's golden girl P T Usha from her home state of Kerala.
So when P T Usha was without money to set up the Usha School of Athletics in north Kerala, Kumari Shibulal was one of the first to give a helping hand.
Six students of the first in the Usha School have been fully sponsored by Akshaya Trust.
In one of her recent visits to the school, Kumari Shibulal wrote: "I will be more than honoured if one among the six students sponsored by me stands on the podium at international meets making our Tricolour fly high."
Above: (From left to right) Kumari Shibulal, Rohini Nilekani and Sudha Murthy. Photograph, courtesy Infosys Technologies