A day with Narayana Murthy

In March 2007, Infosys BPO had its new building in Brno city center and Narayana Murthy was one of the Guests along with Czech President Vaclav Klaus.

We decided upon lighting of a candle as an Indian tradition by the guests and I drew rangoli and decorated it with flowers. The lamps were lit and the function went smoothly.

Few of us (outstanding performers apparently) were invited for dinner with Narayana Murthy and I never thought in my life that I would be sitting with him for dinner.

During this occasion, there as one lady from Bulgaria and when she introduced herself that she is from Bulgaria, Mr. Murthy, said he would like to tell one of his encounters with Bulgarian authorities during communist regime (sometime in 1974).

Mr. Murthy was hitch hiking in the location called Nis, a border town between former Yugoslavia, now Serbia, and Bulgaria. He was hitchhiking from Paris back to Mysore, India.

Mr. Murthy was dropped by a driver to Nis railway station and since he did not have any money, he had to sleep on the railway platform until Sofia express came aboard.

The only passengers in his compartment were a girl and a man. 
Mr. Murthy started a conversation in French with this girl. The girl was talking about life in an iron curtain country and after sometime they were suddenly interrupted by some policemen who, Mr. Murthy said were tipped by the man in their compartment thinking the girl and Mr. Murthy were criticizing the communist government of Bulgaria.

The girl was set free, but Mr. Murthy’s backpack and sleeping bag were confiscated by Policemen. He was apparently dragged along the platform into a small room with a cold stone floor and a hole in one corner as toilet facilities. He was held in that bitterly cold room without food or water for over 72 hours. 

Yes, 72 hours!!! He stopped at that point and I could see his face getting stonier when he was saying this. He looked very very serious and I almost felt the chill not because of the story but the way he was saying it. I never had heard him speak before. He spoke as if he was whispering and I had to strain my ears to hear what he was telling because I was sitting few chairs away.

Then he said he had lost all hope of ever seeing the outside world again. He was again dragged out and locked up in the guard's compartment on a departing freight train and he was told that he would be released 20 hours later upon reaching Istanbul.

He said that the guard's final words still rings in his ears "You are from a friendly country called India and that is why we are letting you go!".
Then he said after this incident, he had to rethink about his extreme left mentality and political thoughts and he changed his political, social and economic scale to liberal... 

I never thought I would be sitting in a restaurant with Mr. Murthy and listening to this bitter story in my life.

He later published this story on rediff in May-2007 (http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/may/28bspec.htm)

Source: http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/may/28bspec.htm

I took few points from the above link(his speech) for the correctness of details about place, jail, station and timings of his release and statement by the guard.