Kaun Banega Crorepati 11 finale preview: Sudha Murty to share her inspiring journey

Amitabh Bachchan will host Sudha Murty on Kaun Banega Crorepati 11's finale episode tonight. Murty will talk about her family's reaction when she decided to take up engineering.

Kaun Banega Crorepati 11 is set to air its finale episode tonight. As part of the Karamveer special, Sudha Murty will grace the hot seat. The Infosys Foundation chairperson will reveal how she broke stereotypes to fulfill her dreams.

Sudha Murty will talk about her family’s reaction when she decided to take up engineering. While her father, who was a doctor, felt she could be a good consulting doctor, her mother wished that she pursued mathematics, given her interest in the subject. As for her grandmother, she was aghast with her decision. Murty shared, “Everyone had a perspective and advice to share on my educational journey. Some people even commented, ‘A girl opting for engineering is unimaginable’, ‘This field is meant for boys’, ‘How can this be allowed?’ and many such things. But I had made up my mind.”

“The college that I had applied to accommodated 600 students in total. And the batch that I was in had 599 boys and 1 girl which was me. The principal had to give me admission based on my marks. However, the admission came with a few clauses. I had to wear a saree through the course of engineering degree. I wasn’t supposed to go to the college canteen. I couldn’t talk to any boy in the college. The first clause wasn’t an issue for me and the second clause was the easiest – the canteen was so bad I anyway didn’t want to eat there. The third clause I strictly maintained for a year because after that the results came and since I was the rank holder, the boys started talking to me,” she shared with a laugh.

The biggest ordeal for her was that there was no female washroom in the college. She would walk two kilometers to use the washroom. And the hardship to find a hygienic toilet led her to build 16,000 toilets across various states once she became the chairperson of Infosys Foundation.

Sudha Murty will then share how she wrote a letter to JRD Tata asking for women engineers to be accepted in Telcos. She said, “It was March 1974. I was in my MTech final year and had just got a scholarship to go to America, when I came across a notice which stated – Telco requires bright, young engineers at a salary of Rs 1,500. This was big money at that time. But that notice followed with a line that said lady students need not apply. I was agitated! I took a postcard and furiously wrote on it without even knowing whom to mail it to.”

“I had studied in Indian Institute of Sciences and I remember that JRD Tata used to attend our Founders Day. I hadn’t even met him personally but I wrote to him – ‘Dear JRD Tata, Tatas are pioneers in the industrial sector and have made hotels and TISCO, yet your thinking is so backward. How can you say that lady students need not apply to the jobs offered by you? Our society is made up of 50% ladies and if this thought continues, we will never be able to progress.”

Sudha Murty will share that while she put the wrong address, Tata somehow received the mail and summoned his team and addressed the issue. Since she had written about equality and being hired on merit basis, he asked his team to give her a test. She was interviewed by a panel of 10 people and managed to impress all. Murty will add that while she had decided to leave for America, her father made her understand that she had to take the job in case she wanted women to be respected in the field. He told her that she had fought for her right and could not step back now.

Her inspiring tale not only left the audience in awe but her humility impressed Amitabh Bachchan. The host not only took Murty’s autograph but also touched her feet as a mark of respect.

KBC 11’s finale episode will air tonight at 9 pm Sony TV.