Knowledge is wealth. Narayana Murthy, Chairman of Infosys has dramatised how wealth can be created out of knowledge. What distinguishes information technology’s first couple Sudha and Narayana Murthy is that they may have their heads in the clouds but their feet remain firmly on the ground. They continue to retain their simplicity and their humility as this profile of the Murthys dramatises. By ARCHANA RAI.

IN A WORLD increasingly defined by nanoseconds, the first thing you notice about Sudha and Narayana Murthy is the air of studied calm. They are the Indian IT industry’s first couple: he, an extraor­dinary entrepreneur, pioneer of employee stock option plans and ace wealth cre­ator, Chairman of the Rs 921 crore Infosys Technologies; and she, less fa­mous but a pathbreaker in her own right, an ace engineer, a respected litterateur.

Their modesty and frugality are leg­endary. Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy answers the phone himself at his Bangalore home and replies to every Email message. We wanted to know what made these two extraordinary people tick.

NARAYANA MURTHY, one the pioneers responsible for the boost in IT industry.

A different kind of courage As a teenager, Sudha defied local tra­dition to become the first girl to study at the BVB College of Engineering in North Karnataka. In 1974, she became the first woman engineer to work on the shopfloor at Telco. After a three-year stint, in the early seventies, at Sesa (So­ciete D’etudes des Systems d’Automation) in Paris on a salary of $1500 a month, Narayana Murthy chose to return to India, without a job, and set up a non-profit organisation. Break­ing conventions has been a habit for the Murthys. And a constant factor has been their ability to look beyond just physi­cal and financial security, something that generations of Indians have han­kered after. This despite the fact that both grew up in homes with extremely modest financial means.

If simplicity is the leitmotif of the life they have knit together, the Murthys nevertheless imbue everything they do with a sense of responsibility and hon­est hard work. Says Murthy: “What is important is that one makes a differ­ence to the context one finds oneself in.” The 54-year-old still routinely clocks close to 90 hours of work per week, pursuing his dream of transform­ing Infosys into a global corporation peopled by a multi-ethnic, multi-racial workforce with a diverse base of cus­tomers and investors.

Growing up in a family of eight chil­dren, sustained on a monthly salary of Rs 170, meant that the acme of ambi­tion for Murthy was a secure govern­ment job. Books were his window to the world. His father, a voracious reader, would read aloud from Dumas or Dickens every Sunday. Murthy topped the board examinations, but paucity of money meant he couldn’t pursue his dream of a place at IIT at the under­graduate level. That dream was fulfilled when he earned a seat at IIT Kanpur for his Master’s in electrical engineering. Says Murthy: “It was really my time at IIT Kanpur and later my first job as chief programmer at IIM Ahmedabad that de­fined my future.” Interacting with peers, who had studied and lived in the US and the intellectual stimulation in the university, opened new vistas for a stu­dent from the boondocks.

But it was finally work that won him over. Professor Krishnayya, in whose team Murthy worked at IIM Ahmedabad, remembers him as “definitely a self­starter”. He recalls, “I just had to spell out something and he would go to work on his own.” There was as yet no hint of commercial awareness in his thinking; it was the thrill of cutting-edge work that had Murthy in thrall. Then came the job offer from Sesa. It was 1970, the Stu­dent Revolution was just over in Paris, and for a young technology enthusiast with leftist leanings, Paris was the city of dreams.

Meanwhile, in Hubli, north Kamataka, Sudha was cresting her own horizons. Growing up with her maternal grand­parents, the daughter of a government service doctor, she was already a com­mitted bibliophile. Says Sudha: “My grandfather was a schoolteacher who earned his living despite inheriting land.” At their home in Shiggaon village, there were always two urns full of grain. The one in front of the house was to be given away to the needy; the one at the back was used for the family. An image that has remained with Sudha. The chil­dren led spartan lives- books were the only permitted indulgence. Says Sudha: “My grandmother learnt to read at the age of 62 but she insisted that we girls were educated and employed before we were married.”

Sudha went through college with a monthly allowance of Rs 2, even for which she was required to give her fa­ther accounts. She has inherited the practice: “Neither of my children, Rohan and Akshatha, get any pocket money. They can come to me anytime they need money and will have to tell me how they spend it.” The Murthys reckon that this thrift as a way of life has afforded them the most independence, as it has allowed them to choose challenge over security each time. In 1972, Sudha moved to Bangalore on a scholarship of Rs 250 for a Master’s in electrical engineering at the Indian Institute of Science. Work­ing at the Computer Centre at a salary of Rs 2 an hour in her spare time, she saved enough to gift her father a watch and her mother a saree at their housewarm­ing ceremony. “I felt so rich,” she re­calls.

These then were the riches that the young Murthy and Sudha carried with them as they flew from the sanctuary of parental nests. Says Murthy: “Our lives were ordinary but the qualities of respect for our elders, honesty and hard work were strictly enforced.” So when Sudha, on a dare, applied to and was accepted as a trainee engineer at Telco, her father insisted she take the job de­spite her reluctance. Says Sudha: “I wanted to study at MIT, and had only applied to Telco in anger at their notice specifying that women engineers need not apply.” Having challenged the status quo, her father was clear that she accept the offer; else it would harm women who would follow her. That was, Sudha says, a lesson in curbing impetuosity.

Post-training, she was earning Rs 5,000 a month at Telco. This was the spur to astute financial management, a habit she honed over her eight years there. The young career woman saved and invested wisely, acquiring stock in com­panies like Dunlop, Parke-Davis and Larsen & Toubro, in addition to Telco. So, even as she was courted by the ideal­istic Murthy, it was Sudha who was al­ways in clover, paying the bills when they went Dutch.

Building blocks
After a momentous trip hitchhiking from Paris to Mysore, Murthy teamed up with a friend to form a non-profit organisation called Systems Research Institute in Pune. The company studied the problems of public utilities using systems theory. His time in Paris had done much to change his political be­liefs. Says Murthy: “I realised that excel­lence and enterprise does not come from the government, which provides no in­centives for individuals.” Individual in­centive, as a way to motivate people to­wards excellence, is a strong belief that Murthy imbibed in France. The ethical creation of wealth, he was convinced, was the only way to eradicate poverty. This forms the cornerstone of his think­ing and corporate strategy.
Spurred by the thought that time was running out, Murthy finally joined the mainstream as head of the software di­vision at Patni Computer Systems in Mumbai. Says he: “I knew I had to un­derstand how wealth was created.” The introvert was finally coming into his own. The couple by then had their firstborn, Akshatha, to care for as well. Murthy was determined to start out on his own and while she agreed, there were the mundane details to take care of. Pool­ing together their savings, Sudha raised a down payment of Rs 1,50,000 for a two-bedroom flat in Pune. The couple walked into an HDFC branch for a loan of Rs 1 lakh.

Gaining security with a roof over their heads, Sudha also got the confidence to believe that Murthy could now chase his dream. And she did more than just con­cur. Putting together what was left of their savings, she gave him Rs 10,000 to begin operations. Says Murthy: “I was conducting an experiment to create wealth. I did not know if I would suc­ceed at all.” Yet, he planned with care, asking those among his Patni colleagues who he believed shared common values to join him. It was crystal clear to them that if they were to build a world class company, they would have to work hard, put in 12 to 16 hours a day. And work­ing at that pace meant there was little time, if any, for disagreements on basic issues. Says Murthy: “I picked people I was comfortable with in terms of val­ues and the rest was simple.”

Thrift begets wealth?
The purse strings at home were drawn tight. Sudha was in effect sup­porting two families - her own and her husband’s in Mysore. This was a time that drew heavily upon her managerial skills, a trait that Murthy rates as among her best. She would draw up an annual family budget, even when they were a double income family, so expenses were categorised as essential, unexpected and non-recurring. Thus, she always had an ­idea of what was necessary and what was not vital when she had to juggle demands on a salary of one.

Says Sudha: “My dreams of personal comfort have always been modest, all I wanted was a two-bedroom home and a good school for my children. That has not changed.” So if there was little money to go around while Murthy and his six co-founders built Infosys, it wasn’t a big deal. Says Murthy: “We had seen our parents live a life of dignity with much less, so it was not an issue.”

Says Murthy: “The Infosys team is like the British Constitution -unwritten - but very strictly followed in principle.” So even when the company was private owned by the seven founders no corporate resource was ever used for personal benefit. As a rule, the company spent less than it earned. From the first year, they paid tax on all the dividend declared and reinvested it back as eq­uity.

Somewhat like a fine philharmonic orchestra. Music, especially Western classical, is Murthy’s only indulgence, the only luxury his family permits itself. Each member has his or her own music system and computer. And in his spartan office with an open door, the only sign that this is an office occupied by one of India’s wealthiest citizens is the state­-of-the-art music system and a collection of his beloved CDs. Says Murthy: “For a perfect day, I need to get a crack at my music - but only after 5 p.m., for if the others can’t play music at work, neither can I.”

The public good
Success demanded its share of sacri­fice. Sudha, who moved to work at Infosys when the company shifted base to Bangalore in 1983, found herself having to resolve one of the most impor­tant issues in her life. Murthy was clear that only one of them should be in says Sudha: “My dreams of personal Infosys.” It was tough and as she bowed out of the company, Sudha was also aware it was the end of the road for her career as engineer. “As Mrs Narayana Murthy, there was little chance that I could go to work as an engineer at, say, Wipro,” she says ruefully. A lifetime of fighting the odds to train as an engineer of distinction had to be shelved, in the interests of greater good. A tenet that’s dear to Murthy: “We realised early at Infosys that if we aim for public good, it -will lead to private good.”

Sudha was left to carve an alternative career for herself. And she went about it with determination, authoring over 12 books in Kannada - a melange of novels and travelogues. What has brought her centrestage again today is her position as trustee at the Infosys Foundation, the company’s philanthropic arm. Says Sudha: “I have no degree in social work but I chose the method of root level philanthropy.” It has worked, spanning the states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Orissa. Focusing on healthcare, education and the arts, the Foundation’s work is primarily in back­ward areas. “I’ve seen drought and pov­erty, I’ve lived with very little money, so now I can truly say money is just a tool,” she says. To that end, they make per­sonal bequests to educational institutes and towards health care in the memory of their fathers, a schoolteacher and a doctor.

Says Murthy: “I have no particular dreams for my children, except that they become good and useful citizens of what­ever society they choose to live in, pay their taxes, and put the interests of the community above their own.”

Having espoused simplicity as a way of life, Murthy now admits that he is torn between savings and consumerism. “The fact is that to create jobs, you need to spend, you need a credit card society. Unless you spend, you cannot create more and more jobs,” he says. And with­out creating jobs, Murthy is well aware that his entire experiment begun two decades ago in a suburban home in Pune, would come to nought.

Every family then has to choose its own way for it is in the choices of indi­viduals that a society reflects itself. And for this uncommon family that has done so much to present a picture of a new India, there is just one maxim: “Always live with reference to the context that you are in.”

Courtesy: Outlook Money

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