‘Only bridge is language...’: Sudha Murty weighs in on Hindi-Tamil row with a personal story

As debate around Hindi and Tamil continues to simmer, Sudha Murty brought in a perspective shaped by practice, not polemics. “We never faced any problem,” she told NDTV in an interview, reflecting on her time in Tamil Nadu. 

“We knew Hindi… we enjoyed beautiful movies… I never faced difficulties.”

Rather than seeing language as a point of friction, she sees it as a 'bridge'. Whether it was learning Tamil to support relief efforts during the tsunami or picking up multiple languages growing up in Hubli, Murty believes every new language adds another bridge — not a barrier.

Murty believes learning multiple languages isn’t just beneficial—it’s essential. “It’s my personal opinion,” she said in the interview. “I wanted to work in Tamil Nadu so I hired a teacher, learnt Tamil. I can read actually, but slowly—and it helped me a lot in [the] tsunami.”

For her, learning languages is about creating bridges. “Children can learn any number of languages… and language is a tool, it’s a bridge. All of us are islands and only bridge is language. So I want to have many bridges—and it’s good for my work.”

Growing up in Hubli, a multilingual town, she picked up Marathi, Konkani, Hindi, Kannada, and even some Urdu. “Particularly when you are young you can learn as many languages as you can—that is my own experience.”

On the recent controversy around her husband Narayana Murthy’s 70-hour workweek comment, she brought in context. “There was no magic wand,” she said of Infosys’s success. “Only hard work, a bit of luck and being in the right place at the right time.”

She recalled how her husband worked more than 70 hours a week during the company’s early years, while she chose to support him and focus on the family. “Instead of lamenting his busy schedule, I balanced our family life.” She emphasized that long hours are common in many fields, from medicine to journalism.

Today, she says, she works more hours than her husband. “He supports me now, like I supported him then.” According to Murty, time is the only true equalizer. “Everyone has 24 hours—how you use it defines your life.”