In the year of 1981 Narayana Murthy with six other individuals started Infosys. He is one of the pioneers in the Indian tech industry. He started Infosys on a meagre Rs 10,000 which he borrowed from his wife Sudha Murthy.
Narayana Murthy belongs to a middle-class family without having any idea regarding business. He is one of the India’s richest people still he likes to lead a simple life therefore he travels in economy class.
There are several facts that is known to all but a lot of people may not know that Narayana Murthy was once sentenced to jailed for 3 days in Bulgaria without food. Earlier this year in January he shared this incident in a tech fest organized by IIT, Bombay through a video link.
In 1974, in Nis, a border town between what is now Serbia and Bulgaria this incident took place. This incident turned him into a “compassionate capitalist “and he created IT behemoth Infosys. He was travelling in a train and engaged in a conversation with a girl, who could only understand French and that led him to trouble.
Murthy has said in an interview in Nis, a kind man dropped him off at the railway station at 9:30 pm, from where he had to take a train to Sofia the next day. Due to lack of Yugoslavian currency restaurants at the station refused him to give food.
The very next day was Sunday and all the banks were closed on that day. He then spent the day laying down at the station and boarded the Sofia Express at 8 pm. Murthy recalled the conversation with the girl but a boy who was accompanying her got upset and called for police.
Police came and they snatched his passport, luggage and dragged him on the platform. Narayana Murthy was jailed for 3 days where he was thrown into an 8x8ft room, which only had toilet in a corner; the floor was hard and cold, without any bed.
“After about 120 hours without water and food, the doors opened. I was dragged out and locked up in the guard’s compartment of a freight train. I had lost the ability to think,” he added. Murthy recalled how guards have said to him, “Look, you are from a friendly country called India, so we are letting you go but we will give you your passport when you reach Istanbul.”
Murthy said this incident made him turn from being “a confused leftist to a determined compassionate capitalist”. He would not want to be a part of communist country, if a country treats friends like this, he imagined.
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