<strong>Viral Message About Sudha Murty Travelling Without Ticket on Train Is Fabricated!</strong>

Many are fascinated to hear about the life tales of prominent and successful personalities, and such stories often get viral on social media. However, some of these stories are fabricated.

This is our investigation related to such a misleading story about the new British PM and his mother-in-law, billionaire businesswoman Sudha Murty.

WHAT’S THE CLAIM?

In brief, the story in the message follows: A 13-years-old girl Chitra was travelling without a ticket on Bombay-Bangalore Train. The ticket checker threatened to throw her out when a kind-hearted Prof., Usha Bhattacharya, paid for her ticket. Upon learning Chitra had no relatives or family, Prof. Usha put her up with an NGO in Bangalore and helped with her education. Later, Prof Usha shifted to Delhi and lost contact with Chitra. After 20 years, Prof. Usha went to the US for a lecture. There she had a meal in a restaurant. She learned that somebody had already paid her dinner bill. She asked who, and Chitra came forward to meet her. They both cried, reminiscing about the train journey. Chitra said that her name is now Sudha, and she married a man called Narayan Murty.

Original Post – Facebook | Facebook

Facebook | Archived

Fact Check

First, we did a keyword search about this story and found a similar report published on the blog site named “The Speaking Tree”. The blog writer published this story with the below introduction in 2016.

“Chairperson, Infosys Foundation is known for her ability to glean interesting stories from the lives of ordinary people. The following is extracted from her latest collection, 'Bombay to Bangalore:”

The Blog can be read here. Archived.

This story is written in first person (meaning Sudha Murthy herself telling the episode). The runaway girl Chitra in this story does not grow up to be Sudha Murthy. And, in the story of “Speaking Tree,” there was no mention of Rishi Sunak, Narayan Murthy, or Akshata Murthy.

Taking a clue from this, we looked for the collection. We found that Bombay to Bangalore is a chapter from Sudha Murty’s book ‘The Day I Stopped Drinking Milk.’ Penguin published it in 2012.

It is her fourth book of recollections of her experiences as a teacher, writer, and social worker. This is a compilation of real-life experiences of Sudha Murty with the tales of selfless service, amuses with a scattering of human-life anecdotes, and reads the book’s description.

“I am writing about the personal lives of many people who have confided in me about their problems,” writes Murthy in the preface of the book. “I thank all these people wholeheartedly and am grateful for their strength and kindness that has allowed me to share their stories with you.”

So, the story of Chitra is not about Sudha Murthy’s childhood. It is just a story about an incident that happened or is known to Sudha Murthy.

In the original story, Chitra marries a man called John, not Narayan Murthy.

Who is Sudha Murty

We found the video below where Sudha explains her childhood, youth, studies, etc. She is grateful to talk about her parents and teachers. She explained about her college studies studying engineering at Karanataka, however, and did not comment on anything related to the social media claims

The life story of Sudha Murty can be read here. Archived. She is an educator, author and philanthropist, chairperson of Indian IT giant Infosys, and married to its co-founder N. R. Narayana Murty. Aksha Narayan Murty is the daughter of the couple and is married to the newly elected British PM, Rishi Sunak

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Conclusion

According to our investigation, we found out that the viral social media story about Sudha Murty was misleading. The viral message is false and does not tell the childhood story of Sudha Murty. The runaway girl Chitra is not Sudha Murty. The information in viral posts is a grossly convoluted version of one of the stories written by Sudha Murty.