Sudha Murty is a multi-hyphenate celebrity today but her journey started more than 50 years ago. At a time when the men took up positions in the engineering workforce, she became the first female engineer to work with the Tatas. The change happened after she wrote a letter to the late Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata, popularly known as JRD Tata, about the gender bias. It is a story that she proudly retells at every opportunity she gets because it is an achievement that needs to be retold for as long as women face challenges at the workplace. A lot has changed since then, and for the better, even though there is a lot more progress to be made. 

Speaking to mid-day.com at 14th Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest, she narrates, “After 50 years, I went to Tata Motors and there is a shop floor, where there are 300 women and no men. They are manufacturing cars. With that joy, I cried. I thought, ‘what a change my country has made, what a change my company has made and what a change those women have made’. It is so nice to see women working and asserting(themselves) and coming out and saying I will earn my own money and become independent.”