'Her dad wants you to work 70 hours a week': Vir Das takes dig at NR Narayana Murthy's 'working hours’ remark

Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy recently made a comment about the '70 hours a week' work culture that went viral on social media. Now stand-up comedian and actor Vir Das has taken a sly dig on the contentious comment that emphasised the need to boost India's work productivity.

Das pointed out the absurdity of the pressure to work 70 hours per week. He ridiculed the idea of being expected to commit to a strenuous work schedule at the cost of personal time and well-being. 

"Life’s hard. You meet a girl, fall in love, get married. Her dad wants you to work 70 hours a week. You can’t work that hard, you just wanna chill and run England," Das wrote on X.

In another tweet, he quipped, "If you’re working 70 hours a week, 5 days a week, essentially from 9am to 11pm. Getting home by 12.30, leave home by 7.30? You should be allowed to fart in your bosses office. If you’re going to request relationship like time commitment, you’ve got to accept the intimacy too."

Das’ comments came after Murthy said in conversation with former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai during a podcast that India’s work productivity is among the lowest in the world and in order to be on par with countries like China, India’s youngsters must work for more hours-- like Japan and Germany did after World War 2.

Murthy, on 3one4 Capital's inaugural "The Record" podcast, argued that India's youth must commit to longer working hours to keep up with rapidly advancing economies. He further said there are other issues like corruption in the government and bureaucratic delays that are plaguing the work culture in India. 

“India's work productivity is one of the lowest in the world. Unless we improve our work productivity, unless we reduce corruption in the government at some level, because we have been reading I don't know the truth of it, unless we reduce the delays in our bureaucracy in taking this decision, we will not be able to compete with those countries that have made tremendous progress,” he said.

His comments sparked various reactions, with many equating the suggestion to a modern-day 'slave culture.' However, some observers clarified that Murthy might have been misquoted, suggesting that the veteran entrepreneur was highlighting a strong work ethic rather than proposing excessively long working hours.

Meanwhile, Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal came out in support of Murthy’s comment and wrote on X, “Totally agree with Mr Murthy’s views. It’s not our moment to work less and entertain ourselves. Rather it’s our moment to go all in and build in 1 generation what other countries have built over many generations!"

Das’ humorous take on Murthy's comment sparked hilarious reactions on social media. “No that guy just wants the ones he pays 25K per month to work 70 hours per week,” a user wrote. "When you realise that running England is easier than working 70 hours a week 😂," another user commented. “Yeah dad after placing her kids well now says everyone to work hard 70 hrs,” a third user wrote. “Murthy should advise his son in law to implement this working hours in England first. Indians will follow it automatically,” another user wrote.

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