Book Review| A whitewashed portrait of Infosys’ first couple
Deccan ChronicleBiographies about dashing billionaires who did weird and wonderful things are fun reads. After Narayana and Sudha’s early Romeo and Juliet days have been recounted, Sudha morphs into another Shakespearean character — a Lady Macbeth type-A personality who eggs her husband on, helps him realise his dream of being an entrepreneur, and lends him more money, even offers her wedding jewellery as collateral for a bank loan like a good Indian wife. The most fascinating bit was explaining the concept of software to bank managers who had no clue what it was in those days: “Once a manager even took off his spectacles and shook them at Murthy, saying that his glasses were a more saleable product than Infosys’ software.” Unfortunately, those bits are scattered between treacly pages on Sudha’s sacrifices and simplicity, and Narayana’s god-like values and humility. It’s surprising that a well known author like Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni agreed to write this book, and more importantly, chose to write it in this cloying, hyper-reverent manner. The only ray of sunshine is that Divakaruni is an established author and not a cynical political strategist, so you don’t have to encounter ridiculous situations like, say, Sudha and Narayana wrestling crocodiles.
Discover Related