“You may be very famous, but if you don’t do anything to your society, you’re classless.” In this old chat with Indiapodcasts’ founder Anku Goyal, Sudha Murty gave her two cents on fame.
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00:00When I wore a salwar kameez and I was in a Heathrow airport,
00:02someone thought you stand in economy because you belong to cattle class.
00:07They think I do not know English because people equate today you are wearing a sari,
00:11salwar kameez and you look simple without makeup that means you are uneducated, non-educated.
00:30You don't want to be famous. So you always say I am not attached to fame
00:41but because of your great contribution to society, people know you, they relate with you
00:47but you don't relate with your own fame. So we see a lot of us today work for fame.
00:52If you ask anyone what do you want to do in life, we want recognition, we want
00:56money or we want some kind of appreciation in the society. How do you define not being famous
01:02or not wanting to be famous because it brings a lot of confidence, acceptance if that's a word.
01:11I agree. Fame is not just coming in the paper or TV or newsreel etc. Fame is acceptance.
01:21Fame is acceptance from the peer pressure people. There are two ways to look at it.
01:27In my case, I felt it maybe initially I wanted acceptance or something and my level is very low
01:35so I got saturated very early and then I did not bother. That is one way of looking at it.
01:40Second thing is I am not a person who goes on acceptance. For example, if acceptance was
01:46important to me, I would not have done engineering because it was absolutely
01:54non-expectance education I took and over a period of time when I worked and saw the world, I said
02:01it doesn't matter what people talk about me. As long as I'm legally, ethically right, as long as
02:07my work helps poor people in our country, let them talk to me anything, I will accept it.
02:14So that attitude probably has made me not to attach to the fame. For example, you must have
02:21read I wrote a cattle class. Many places I have seen the way because I wear saree, they think I
02:26do not know English because people equate today you are wearing a saree, salwar kameez and you
02:31look simple without makeup that means you are uneducated. Most people think that way. That is
02:37the way of thinking, let them think it doesn't matter to me. So once I went to a dinner party
02:42and someone thought you know everyone was dying their hair. If you're not dying that means you're
02:48not smart, okay. You're not up to the mark, all those things. They came with a great hesitation
02:53being Narayan Murthy's wife, they felt like they should talk to me and but they thought I may not
02:59understand English at all. They said hello, namaste, may I know your name please. I said yeah
03:07I'm Sudha Murthy and thank you glad to meet you. They said my god you know English. I said of
03:12course I know English, I'm an author. So these are the myths people think about that. For example,
03:17I wore a salwar kameez and I was in a Heathrow airport. Someone thought you should stand in
03:22economy because you belong to cattle class. Then I said what is the definition of a class? Class
03:29is not money, class is not beauty, class is not fame. Class is what you are to the society. You
03:36may be very beautiful, you may be very famous but if you don't do anything to your society,
03:40according to my definition, they're classless. Mother Teresa wore a simple sari. She had a class.
03:48You look at great people, they have a class. Not have money and that is my way of looking at it but
03:54people think that oh you are your didi ji, your bhabhi ji, okay. Let them think. You can't live
04:01on someone's opinion. You have to live on your opinion what you think about. I don't know how
04:08this will go with us being on social media all the time. We have so many applications. All the
04:13time we are on social media and unknowingly we validate each other all the time. So this is a
04:19very disastrous. You are in a race where there is no end point. Yes. Right. If you are in a race
04:26where after 100 feet there is a thread, okay, cross the line, you are winner. Yes. And second
04:32thing, how long you can be in a race. If you are in such race, suppose you are learning race,
04:37I understand but you are in a race where there is always a pressure to excel, to look better,
04:44to wear better dress, to talk better and how long you can do that. Yes. And that will
04:51actually break you one or other day.