Be it Mother Teresa, Sarojini Naidu, or Kalpana Chawla, women have almost always been a source of motivation and a catalyst for social change. One such name is of Mrs Sudha Murthy, who has made a prominent impact on the Indian society.
Soberly dressed in traditional Indian attire, Sudha Murthy’s philanthropic work has garnered global recognition. From becoming the first female Engineer of India to heading a company like Infosys, her seriousness towards making a change in the society and her educational journey has played a significant role in her making.
Education
Sudha Murthy has always been fascinated with science and even more so with its application. She, hence, told her parents that she wanted to pursue her career in engineering, however, they retorted back as if she had dropped a bomb inside the house!
During 1968, engineering was an all-male domain and hence was considered a taboo for girls in those days. After putting forward cogent arguments, she took admission in Karnataka’s B.V.B College of Engineering and Technology where she was the only female student in the engineering stream.
Career
In 1972 she won a gold medal in the class, for Masters in Computer Science, at IISc, Bangalore. While pursuing her masters she caught sight of a gender-based stereotypes creeping in: It was during that time; a notice came for engineering graduates to apply for a job at Tata Motors on their campus. Mrs. Sudha was not keen on taking up a job as she had already got several offers from the US universities to continue with a doctorate. But one line at the bottom of the job-notice that read ‘Lady Candidates need not apply’ made her change her decision and tackle the misconception head-on. She decided to take matters into her own hands and wanted to quell the taboo. She further wrote a postcard, addressing the injustice to JRD Tata. This struck a chord.
After a few days she went in for an interview in Pune and joined as Development Engineer and became the first female engineer at TELCO. She met Narayana Murthy there and got married to him.
In 1981, Infosys was born and she had to give up her career and personal life to help Mr. Narayana Murthy turn his Infosys dream into reality. It was during the beginning that Mr. Murthy gave her the choice of whether she wanted to continue with Infosys or pull back since both of them could not be at Infosys together.
Family
And she decided to pull back. It was of course very hard for her since she was so career conscious and fond of technical things. But many reasons drove her to make that decision.
Any guesses what was her prime reason?
Her children. They were too young and they do require their mother in the early stage of life. She taught her kids how to be respectful, how to always be grounded and how to have a soft heart for the poor. She took the role of a homemaker and supported her husband but somewhere down the line she felt she lost her golden days.
Purpose in Life
Then at the age of 45, she became one of the first trustees of Infosys Foundation, the company’s non-profit arm which was established in 1996.
Her daughter asked her: ‘A person like you who is well-read and well-travelled, what do you expect in life? Do you want to be glamorous? Do you want to spend your time in technology? Or do you want to spend your time with your large family? What do you want to do in life?”
This made Sudha Murthy, who was around 45 years old at the time, question her purpose in life. She found herself asking herself at the time, “What is there to do with my life? I thought I could enjoy the fruits of my labour, but what does ‘enjoy’ mean? Was it to make money, win awards, have children, or get more doctorates?”
Social Work
Shortly thereafter, Sudha Murthy resigned from her full-time position in the University, choosing to take up a consulting professor role instead, and became one of the first trustees of Infosys Foundation. Since then, Sudha Murthy has led various initiatives by the Infosys Foundation to build hospitals, schools, orphanages, rehabilitation centres, as well as more than 14,000 toilets and over 60,000 libraries for the underprivileged sections of the society.
She is the Chairperson of the Infosys Foundation, where she works with people from different walks of life. This she believes is the purpose of her life: serving people. At Infosys Foundation, Sudha Murthy has dedicated her life to serving the underprivileged by empowering them through education, poverty alleviation, healthcare, public hygiene, education, and art and culture.
It has established 50,000 libraries and awarded more than 10,000 student scholarships to date. They have spent whatever money they got so far. Mr. Murthy [N.R. Narayana Murthy] jokingly calls her a spendthrift wife. He says, “Whatever money we give, you still say I have no money.” When they started the foundation in 1996, they had Rs.9 lakh to spend. In the 19 years of their existence, they have spent about Rs.450 crore.
Awards
From the start of her education, she had won many prestigious awards. Sudha Murthy got recognized for the Raja-Lakshmi award by the Sri Raja-Lakshmi Foundation in Chennai in 2004. She won the award for her outstanding performance in Social Works. She won the Padma Shri, the fourth highest-ranking official as per the Government of India, and even obtained a doctorate for her publications.
Conclusion
Acclaimed author and philanthropist Sudha Murthy is a perfect example of how a woman or any person can successfully chase a time-consuming career and yet also manage to serve the society in any which way possible.
The Padma Shri award winner author once said “You should never worry about being in the limelight. It is like a revolving camera. What you should worry about is what you like to do, as long as what you like to do is morally and ethically right,”
Mrs. Sudha Murthy has also authored best-sellers like ‘Wise and otherwise’, ‘Gently falls the Bakula’, ‘Mahashweta’, and ‘Dollar Bahu’. Her writing had a piquant of common lives. She wrote on hospitality, her childhood, realizing views on donations and charity. She is a bountiful fiction author in Kannada as well as English.
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