Narayana Murthy, co-founder of Infosys, and his wife, Sudha Murthy, recently shared some insights from their lives. The couple were the star guests on the popular talk show The Great Indian Kapil Sharma Show where they delighted the audience with candid, humorous stories from their personal lives.
One of the show’s highlights was Narayana Murthy’s funny confession about forgetting their 25th wedding anniversary. He recalled, “One morning, Sudha asked me, ‘Is there anything special today?’ I replied, ‘No, nothing,’ and went to the office. As I was getting in the car, she asked again, ‘Think of anything special today?’ I still didn’t realize.”
Narayana Murthy’s daughter calls him to “hire a private plane..”
Later that day, while heading to Mumbai, Murthy received a call from their daughter, Akshata Murty, who was studying at Stanford University at the time. This is how the conversation went:
“She asked, ‘What are you doing?’ I told her I was catching a flight. She immediately said, ‘Cancel it, get the first flight back to Bangalore, and wish your wife a happy anniversary!’”
Narayana Murthy shared that he told her about a speech at 3pm but Akshata insisted, “I don’t care if you have a speech at 3 pm. If you need to hire a private plane, hire it, but come back and wish her!” Their daughter, Akshata Murty, is now married to former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Sudha Murthy also chimed in, laughing, “It was our 25th wedding anniversary so it doesn’t happen every year. So I thought, let me give him a cue but it did not work… For five-ten minutes I felt bad because I’m also human. But my daughter was very upset, she went ‘In America this never happens!’, but I went ‘India main it happens though’, who can remember these things??”