Love makes people do stupid things with all those hormones and emotions kicking in. A young lovestruck NR Narayana Murthy wasn't different from others when he first met his wife Sudha Murty (at the time Kulkarni) and fell in love at first sight.
Among the many crazy things Murthy did for his wife, he recalls that he once travelled on a train for 11 hours without a ticket to drop his wife off.
"In those days, I was in kind of relaxed, in love or whatever, the hormones would be kicking, that's a different age", Murthy told CNBC-TV18 Managing Editor Shereen Bhan in an exclusive interview.
Jab they met
"My friend Prasanna, who used to work as a Tata Administrative Services (TAS) trainee, was staying with me. And he brought Sudha; she came to the office, and it was like she lit up the room. She was very young, full of joy, full of humour; she lit up the room."
Prasanna eventually became the Chief Marketing Officer at Wipro.
For Murthy, it was love at first sight. But not for Sudha.
"No, because I was brought up in engineering college. The only girl with all male members, my classmates and friends. So talking to any other young man is as good as talking to a friend. It is not like, oh, if I meet a young man, I fall in love. No, I was not that kind. And I knew how to talk to a boy without feeling shy. So, for me, it was like any other young, bright fellow – Prasanna's friend, Prasanna was my colleague at Telco."
Red flags and green flags
"I used to tell my father, I will marry a man who reads a lot. Not who earns a lot, not my criteria. Someone who reads a lot is very important to me. And Murthy used to read a lot."
Another quality that attracted Sudha was Murthy's honesty. "He told me I can't give you a life with a lot of money. That's the way he introduced himself. And he told me, I'm five feet five inches tall. I come from a family of teachers, and I don't have any assets. I mean, a boy who wants to marry normally they tell other way."
Murthy took many autorickshaw rides with wife Sudha in Pune in the '70s and '80s, and the couple eventually married in early 1978.
While being in love is a fine foundation to build a life on, it alone is not enough.
So, how do you make a marriage succeed over a long time? Murthy said, "As she (Sudha) said, first of all, you have to give space... What it means is that you are, by your actions, demonstrating that you respect that other person as your equal."
Murthy added, "But I'm talking of an enduring marriage over a long time. So it is extremely important that when you come together, both of you are excited. That's very important."
During the interview, Murthy admitted to his mistake of keeping Sudha Murthy out of the company despite her being more qualified than the founding team members.
Why did Murthy choose to keep Sudha out of Infosys?
"I had this feeling that good corporate governance means not bringing family into it. Because those days, it was only family rule, all kinds of children used to come and run the company, there used to be a violation of all laws," Murthy told CNBC-TV18's Bhan. Murthy admits that he was being "wrongly idealistic".
(Edited by : Sriram Iyer)
First Published: Jan 12, 2024 10:33 AM IST
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