The story of a woman who defied all odds to become an ‘Engineer in a man’s world’

From her younger days, Sudha Murty has broken gender barriers and helped pave the way for women in the field of STEM. Apart from being the first female engineer to be hired at TATA Engineering and Locomotive Company (TELCO), her extensive philanthropic initiatives and literary works are an inspiration for today’s generation as well.

Calling Sudha Murty, ‘a woman of steel’ is a close enough descriptor of what she’s made of — immense strength, unbeatable resilience and indestructible courage — as those are the traits which allowed her to tread on the path where only men had the right to walk.

Murty, who dons several hats including that of an educator, author, philanthropist, and now Rajya Sabha MP, started her string of successes by enrolling into an engineering college.

Born on August 19, 1950, Murty hailed from a traditional background, where pursuing engineering as a woman was met with skepticism. Murty’s father was a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Karnataka Medical College at Hubli, and her mother was a schoolteacher before she got married.

She finished her pre-university exams with excellent marks and expressed her desire to pursue engineering. Engineering had always fascinated her as she believed she would be able to utilize her design skills. Despite belonging to educated parents, the immediate reaction of her conservative south Indian Brahmin family was that of shock, as engineering was seen as an all-male domain, and girls thinking to pursue such a profession was considered taboo. But, Murty remained undeterred and went on to excel academically, earning a gold medal for her outstanding performance in engineering.

In a podcast with the founder of Myntra and Cult, Mukesh Bansal, Murty recalled that at 17 years when she applied for engineering, it was unheard of in her town.

Recalling those days, Murty said, there were no toilets for women in her college, likely because they never imagined a woman to pursue and complete engineering and so never thought of putting up toilets.

“I was the only girl in my university in my class. They did not build toilets. I said it does not matter. I will not drink water from 7 am-12 pm.

Then I would walk back home, use the restroom, have lunch and then would be in the lab from 2 pm to 5 pm,” she said.

Before enrolling in college, she had other challenges at hand in her community and family. Her grandmother dissuaded her from pursuing engineering, with some even thinking that there was something wrong with her brain. She said that women were “extremely good at cooking but not adventurous.”

“They were very traditional people. People thought there was something wrong with my brain. How can a girl do engineering? Everybody had their own reasoning,” she recalled.

Murty also said that many at the time tried to talk her out of it because women with engineering degrees were unlikely to find a good husband.

“My grandmother said you should not do engineering because nobody will marry you in our community, in our area. My mother said you should become a mathematics professor so that you can manage your house as well as your career. Everybody had a different idea,” she said.

Even her college didn’t believe how a woman would complete a degree in engineering, Murty said.

Recalling her college days, Murty said that in her four years of pursuing the engineering degree, she did not take any leaves. “I never took one day off in four years because I didn’t want to ask for notes from anybody. Then I thought if I didn’t put 100 per cent, nobody would put any per cent in me. I have to work very hard. So, the great philosophy in life is that if I want something, I should work for it. I should not depend on anyone,” she said.

In her book ‘Three Thousand Stitches’, there’s a chapter called ‘How to Beat Boys’ where she recounts the hurdles she faced being the only girl student at BVB College of Engineering and Technology.

“They would throw paper aeroplanes at my back. Unfolding the papers, I would find comments such as, ‘A woman’s place is in the kitchen or medical science, or as a professor, definitely not in an engineering college’,” she had said in one of her interviews.

In the book, she also shares a detailed account of being the center of attraction in college. When exam results were announced in the college, all eyes were on her and everyone knew her marks before she did. In fact, she says that her marks were displayed on a notice board for everyone to see. Although she had no privacy, beating all the boys at their own game made her feel good, she says in the book.

Despite her challenges, Murty said her father supported her. “My father said come what may, I will support you as long as you are legally and ethically right,” she said.

She completed her BEng degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Basappa Veerapa Bhoomaraddi College of Engineering and Technology in Hubli, Karnataka (now KLE Technological University) and her MEng in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Science.

After completing her master’s degree, Sudha Murty started preparing for her Doctorate of Philosophy abroad. However, fate had something else planned for her. Known to take challenges head-on, Murty saw an advertisement from TELCO (now Tata Motors) for an opening, but with a disclaimer that read, “Female candidates need not apply.” She was offended by the advertisement and decided to write a letter to JRD Tata. Surprisingly, JRD Tata replied after ten days and she was invited for an interview with her trip sponsored by Tata.

She went on to become the first female engineer to be hired at Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company (TELCO) in Pune, which is where she met her husband Narayan Murthy ― co-founder of Infosys ― whom she married in 1978 while still working at TELCO.

Murty said she believes that the world belongs to someone who aspires to get what they want and so she did exactly that.

“I also understood something at a very young age ― maybe 19 or 20 ― which later became my mantra and I realized was a great philosophy – ‘You want to do anything in life? You are all alone, and you must do it all alone. If you want to do bad in life, you are responsible. You have bad habits, you are responsible. Good things? You are responsible.’ Later on in life, I realized it is the essence of Bhagavad Gita. You are your best friend and your worst enemy,” she said.

Murty’s entrepreneurial skills are another facet of her exemplary personality. In 1982, when her husband began Infosys, she supported him with monetary help. A visionary herself, Murty had saved some funds for emergencies which she gave to her husband to start the business. It was her initial support and encouragement that helped him get the company to where it is today.

A girl brought up in a middle-class family in Hubli, Karnataka, Murty, never gave up on her dreams. Besides being the first woman in India to study Mechanical Engineering, she went on to establish India’s renowned IT services company Infosys with her husband Narayana Murthy.

Murty, who is in her 70th decade of her life, has become a youth icon and shares several anecdotes from her life on TV and social media which are inspiring in more ways than one. Her honest, humble and motivating takes on life have garnered her quite a following from the youth.

Sudha Murty is a trailblazer in her own right. A prolific author, Murty’s skill of story-telling can be credited to her mother who asked her to write essays of 25 lines daily or she wouldn’t get dinner. She has written several children’s books and has made significant contributions to Kannada and English literature. Her book “How I Taught My Grandmother to Read” has sold over 1 lakh copies.

Last year, her works were showcased as an animated series on Netflix, ― Story Time with Sudha Amma― featuring 52 stories penned by Murty which includes Grandma’s Bag of Stories, Grandparents’ Bag of Stories, and The Magic Drum among others.

The series is available in six languages– Hindi, English, Marathi, Kannada, Tamil, and Telugu, with each episode 11 minutes long. The show was also streamed on Murty Media’s YouTube channel.

Besides being honored with the Sahitya Akademi Bal Sahitya Puraskar, she has also received Padma Shri (2006), and the Padma Bhushan (2023). This year, she was nominated to the Rajya Sabha by President Droupadi Murmu.

Through her philanthropic works at Infosys Foundation, Murty has built over 2,300 houses for people affected by floods, more than 16,000 toilets and over 60,000 school libraries in rural India. She has also launched initiatives like “The Mahila Samakhya Program” for women’s education and empowerment in rural areas, especially those who belong to socially and economically marginalized communities.