MADURAI: Detention for 72 hours in a small town in Yugoslavia in 1974 influenced Infosys Chief Mentor N.R. Narayana Murthy to get into business.
Going four days without food and sleeping on a railway platform had an impact on Mr. Murthy, who was on a personal trip to France seven years before Infosys was set up.
Bitter experience
He shared the bitter experience he had in the town bordering Bulgaria during an informal interaction with students of Thiagarajar School of Management (TCM) here on Friday.
He had boarded a train in Bulgaria and began conversing with a woman, who was travelling with a boy.
“That boy did not know French, whereas I could manage. When I found that the lady could speak the language, we started talking. Seeing this, the boy called the police and I was detained,”Mr. Murthy said.
He said he was put in the corner of a cell for three days. The night before the incident, Mr. Murthy had slept on the railway platform without food “as I could not get money since the local banks were closed that day.”
“When the police released me, I was put on a freight train and it was then I thought how a society treats when a boy and girl talked as friends.” “I thought I would start a business enterprise in our country which would nurture the philosophy of friendship,” he said.
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