In a recent appearance on the Kapil Sharma chat show in India, Sudha Murty, the mother-in-law of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, shared an amusing incident

involving border staff during her visit to the UK. Murty, the wife of billionaire Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy, revealed that she had written down Downing Street, the historic address where her daughter Akshata resides with Rishi Sunak, on a form. The border guard, astonished by her claim, questioned if she was joking. Murty insisted that she was telling the truth, stating, "No one believes that I, a 72-year-old simple lady, can be the mother-in-law of the Prime Minister."

Last month, Murty made headlines when she credited her daughter for guiding Rishi Sunak into No10. On the chat show, she expressed her pride in the fact that her daughter had made her husband the Prime Minister of the UK. Murty, a philanthropist and author, also shared how she had influenced Sunak to fast every Thursday as a mark of respect for a Hindu guru revered by their family. Akshata has praised her mother for instilling values of hard work, humility, and selflessness in her.

Murty's journey as a trailblazer began in the late 1960s when she became the only female student at an engineering college in Karnataka, India. She faced restrictions such as wearing only a sari, refraining from interacting with male students, and avoiding the canteen. In 1974, she became the first female engineer to be hired by the TATA group, a prominent Indian auto manufacturer, after challenging their discriminatory hiring practices. Murty turned down a scholarship to study in the US to champion the cause of Indian women in the engineering industry. She played a pivotal role in establishing Infosys, a consulting and IT services firm, alongside her husband in 1981. Today, Infosys is valued at approximately £50 billion, with Akshata's stake worth hundreds of millions of pounds. Photo by Rajagopal, Wikimedia commons.