Pride of India - N. R. Narayana Murthy

16th August 2007 was a special day for me, one it is my beloved brother Parag's birthday who turned 27 and today I was standing next to the Great Mr. Narayana Murthy and got a couple of minutes to talk with this charismatic personality. It was sheer luck that we met Mr. Narayana Murthy. Me and my friend got introduced to one of the CEO's, who happened to be part of Kannada association. We had met him at the Indian independence day celebration here in Singapore when we took a photograph of his with the Indian ambassador & introduced to him. We took his card & my friend, sent the photograph to the CEO & we had not expected to hear from him so early, but it was destiny I guess, that we got a call from him. he informed us that Kannada association is having Mr. Murthy for dinner on 16th august & that we could meet him during this time. We had to agree immediately.

We arrived at about 7:30 pm for the function and met our friend who was in a telecon with his american & Indian office. He got us into the function after completing the formality. We were thrilled to see Mr. Murthy & Mrs. Sudha Murthy. I had heard about Mrs. Sudha Murthy, who has also been the founder member of Infosys & known for her wonderful way to mesmerise the audience with her speech. We were not to be disappointed, although Mrs. Sudha murthy spoke completely in Kannada, we could make out some portion of the topic, which as about her experience in the international market representing such a big name. We got busy taking lot of photographs while the speech was on. Finally the time came when Mr. Murthy was invited to give his speech at the event.

We were so glad, when we were just about 2 minutes into hearing what he had say, when he announced that he would prefer to talk in English and not in Kannada. Although his talk was going to be more on the occassion of 60 years of Indian Independence, it was a sheer bliss to hear from the man who built the Infosys empire & had a vision for his company which started in 1981 along with six other software professionals and served as the CEO for 20 years before handing over the reins of the company to co-founder Nandan M. Nilekani in March 2002. Mr. Murthy mentioned about the growth India is doing and our duty as citizens of india to contribute in the best possible way to contribute. Seconly the thing that hit m when Mr. Murthy said is that India's 60th year of independence is something of baby steps into its independence looking at the history of India as country since we have been developing and redeveloping since past 1000 of years with things like caste & religion which have been imbibed into the society and it is difficult to change the way people & society looks at things at once. He stressed the point of getting the country which could work on meritocratic method which Singapore is developed & is running smoothly. But he also pointed out that it is a huge task and that youth will play a major role in this & their appropraite grooming into today's competitive world will get the change happen.

Mr. Murthy had kept his speech short but precise due to time constraint, but he took few questions from the audience. One of the questions that was put to Mr. Murthy and Mrs. Murthy was " How do they handle their relationship and what is their secret". Mr. Murthy answered to this and I quote "He said relationship has to be such where both partners have to listen to each other and understand the situation he or she is going through and should be able to lend him or her a hand to get through the situation. He or she should share such a relationship where ones presence should lighten up the others life after a hard days work and that both should be responsible for each others health and needs & make sure to meet the demands to the best of the abilities & resources. Thier important role is to groom the children in a such a way so that they can be independent & responsible when they grow up and contribute to the society & make the parents and their country proud."

I shall the recorded speech of Mr. Murthy of this day. I am sure hearing him would be something more wonderful.