Pod Insights Rosebud with Gyles Brandreth More Rosebud - Akshata Murty About this episode Akshata Murty, entrepreneur, philanthropist and wife of the former Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, is our guest today. And it's particularly interesting to listen to this episode in light of the resignation of Keir Starmer yesterday (Monday 22 June 2026): what is it really like to be married to a prime minister? What are Akshata's memories of the day, in the pouring rain, that Rishi Sunak announced the fateful 2024 election? Did she feel she sacrificed her own life and career to make way for Rishi's ambitions? Plus, this episode opens with some topical chat from Gyles and Harriet - move over, Rest is Politics!
But this episode is really about Akshata's own life and times - her unusual childhood, in which she was raised until the age of five by her maternal grandparents in a small, dusty town, eating mangoes straight from the tree, while her parents worked hard to build their company, Infosys. She talks of the pain and confusion of missing her parents, and of the conflicting emotions that brings up. Akshata talks about her parents' vision and commitment to giving back to India - to "compassionate capitalism" and philanthropy. She talks about moving to Bangalore, her school life and her first crush. She talks about college in California and meeting Rishi.
This is an interesting, unexpected conversation. With many thanks to Akshata Murty. Enjoy this.
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Transcript 12,485 words · 8 speakers
0:21 Speaker 00 This is More Rosebud. I'm Giles Brandreth. It's the 23rd of June 2026. More Rosebud with, of course, more content because I've got with me my friend and producer, Harriet Jane. How are you today, Harriet?
0:36 Speaker 01 Yes, I'm very well, Giles.
0:37 Speaker 00 I'm glad you are. I say more Rosebud, but no more Prime Minister.
0:43 Speaker 01 I know.
0:44 Speaker 00 Because yesterday, and I'm saying this because we know that 20% of our audience are international, only about 80% of our audience are in the UK where we make the podcast, so they may not have been following what's been happening in the UK if you're around the world. In a nutshell, what happened about 24 hours ago was that the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, resigned as leader of the Labour Party. He is still Prime Minister and will remain Prime Minister until a new Labour Party leader is chosen. Just to explain to people internationally how this works, we have a parliamentary democracy and essentially
1:24 Speaker 00 the largest party is invited to form the government of the day and the leader of that party becomes the Prime Minister. In the case of Keir Starmer, he was elected two years ago with a huge majority and became the Prime Minister. But there were not very good local election results, in fact, very bad ones, for his party a couple of weeks ago, and his backbench members of parliament and some members of his government, even members of his cabinet, were getting restless, feeling he wasn't delivering the goods, he wasn't the leader that they wanted, and decided he had to go. He didn't like this very much, as you can understand, and in many ways he has some justification in not liking it because he felt he was doing his best. He didn't break the law, he's not made
2:09 Speaker 00 any mistakes that would actually oblige him to step down. But we now have, or about to have, our seventh Prime Minister in 10 years, and Keir Starmer, despite winning this colossal victory only two years ago, is out. Now, what's your thinking about that, you?
2:29 Speaker 01 Oh, crumbs.
2:30 Speaker 00 As a member of the public.
2:31 Speaker 01 Giles, yeah, that's, I'm going to speak as a member of the public, because I'm definitely not an expert. Although we did meet Keir Starmer, didn't we Giles? And so, and listeners can hear him on Rosebud.
2:41 Speaker 00 And when we met him, I found him to be human, likeable.
2:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:46 Speaker 00 And indeed, somebody who interviewed me recently from the Sunday Times said that that interview that we did with Keir Starmer explains everything.
2:55 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
2:56 Speaker 00 His relationship with his parents, his resentment of his father's closeness to his mother. All of that came through. And also, his desire to be liked, his need to be liked.
3:09 Speaker 01 And his, I felt that he was really looking after his family from a young age, almost. Quite a responsible person that took things quite seriously. And I think you see that in him, you know, he is a serious person. But what's my thinking is, I think it's almost impossible to be Prime Minister now. You know, I mean, it's just impossible to stay in the job. It's really hard to do the job. And I don't know why that is. I think it's social media, I think it's the news cycle. It's probably all the podcasts just going on about politics all day long.
3:48 Speaker 01 And, and I think Keir Starmer really struggled to decide what he wanted to say and stick to it.
3:56 Speaker 00 That was a major problem, the flip flopping, the U-turns and all of that.
4:00 Speaker 01 And you just get buffeted around in a way that, you know, someone like Mrs. that, you know, the, the sort of people we look back at as being people that were in the job for a long time and, and really had staying power and authority. They, they weren't flip flopping and they were possibly ignoring what the rumblings were on the back benches or the rumblings in the press.
4:21 Speaker 00 I've told you, haven't I? Exactly. I've told you about the little note that Tony Blair keeps in his wallet.
4:26 Speaker 01 Uh, yes, you have. I can't now remember.
4:29 Speaker 00 The three words, stay standing up. That he was given by the security people when he became Prime Minister. Advice to him to, you know, make himself visible. They could rescue him if he was caught up in a sort of an attack of any kind. And he kept hold of it because he had observed that if you stay standing up, eventually the storm usually blows over you.
4:46 Speaker 01 Yes.
4:47 Speaker 00 And so you don't fold. And of course, he managed ten years as Prime Minister.
4:50 Speaker 01 Yeah.
4:50 Speaker 00 And Margaret Thatcher, ten years as Prime Minister. John Major, seven years. David Cameron, six years.
4:56 Speaker 01 No, that is good advice, actually. But I have to say, I think it's become very, very difficult to ignore because the problem with social media and the way that we have such access to politicians now and they hear so quickly what the vox populi is saying. I think it's very hard to ignore it. You know, people can sort of call for suddenly there's a sort of national outrage over something in the space of an afternoon and it all goes a bit haywire.
5:23 Speaker 00 But the vox populi changed their views and quite quickly.
5:26 Speaker 01 I mean, the vox populi, they're an absolute nightmare, child. If it was me, I'd just tell them all to go away.
5:32 Speaker 00 Well, in nineteen ninety-nine, two years after Tony Blair's triumphant nineteen ninety-seven victory, he had terrible local election results.
5:40 Speaker 01 Ah, yeah.
5:41 Speaker 00 But stood firm, kept going. His results were quite as bad as the ones that Keir Starmer had only a few weeks ago. But he kept going. Tell you what my reservation about the present situation is this. You may not think Keir Starmer has been a great Prime Minister, you might like his policies. But you can't deny that he was elected.
6:00 Speaker 01 Hmm.
6:01 Speaker 00 His party won all those seats. He was the leader of the party. He managed to bring the Labour Party back from its times with Jeremy Corbyn.
6:09 Speaker 01 Yeah.
6:09 Speaker 00 One of its worst results to one of its best results. That's not a bad achievement.
6:13 Speaker 01 But it was only thirty-three percent.
6:15 Speaker 00 Of course.
6:16 Speaker 01 Of the people that really who actually voted.
6:18 Speaker 00 Who turned out and voted, yes, I know. But nonetheless, it was a good result. And now he's out. And it looks as if we're going to get somebody that nobody knows much about. Do you know much about Andy Burnham?
6:29 Speaker 01 I know he wears black t-shirt, black trousers and has long eyelashes.
6:33 Speaker 00 Oh.
6:34 Speaker 01 Um, but no, I don't really, but isn't he planning an election?
6:38 Speaker 00 No, I think we may be getting a coronation. There was the possibility of there being a contest with other people like Wes Streeting, who we've also had on Rosebud, but Wes Streeting is now rode in behind Andy Burnham. Speculation being that he's promised him rather a plum job, maybe being Chancellor of the Exchequer.
6:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
6:56 Speaker 00 Maybe being Defence Secretary, something that might be rather, and so anyway, so Wes Streeting is not going to contest Andy Burnham. So Andy Burnham could get in, so somebody who wasn't even a member of Parliament last week.
7:08 Speaker 01 I know.
7:09 Speaker 00 Could be our next Prime Minister. We know nothing about him. He may be wonderful. And we're told he has all this charisma. We haven't seen much of it yet, but, but if his people are listening, we want to invite him onto Rosebud.
7:21 Speaker 01 Oh, absolutely.
7:22 Speaker 00 And I'm going to get on to that right away.
7:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
7:24 Speaker 00 Because the one thing you do do with Rosebud, and we've found this with all the political people we've had, Kemi Badenoch, Keir Starmer, Wes Streeting, if you talk to them for quite a while, and particularly about their childhoods, you do get to know them a little bit more, I think, than you do from just a, you know, quick interview on a news programme.
7:43 Speaker 01 Oh, absolutely, yeah.
7:44 Speaker 00 Did you watch his resignation speech?
7:47 Speaker 01 I did, well, I saw a bit of it, yeah.
7:49 Speaker 00 And where you touched as many people were?
7:52 Speaker 01 Yes, I was, I mean, he had tears in his eyes. You'd be pretty hard-hearted not to feel sorry for him.
8:00 Speaker 00 I was watching it with journalists at the programme this morning, and I was interested to see that quite a few of them had tears in their eyes as well.
8:08 Speaker 01 Did they?
8:09 Speaker 00 Particularly towards the end.
8:11 Speaker 01 Oh, dear.
8:11 Speaker 00 Because he concluded his speech with, by saying, and I'm quoting here, "When I leave the biggest job in the country, I shall spend more time on the most important job, being the best husband I can to my fantastic wife Vic, who has been a rock by my side through good times and bad, and being the best dad I can to my beautiful children who are my pride and my joy."
8:38 Speaker 01 Oh, that's lovely, isn't it?
8:40 Speaker 00 And then we saw him going back to Vic, Victoria, his wife. And they had a bit of a hug.
8:45 Speaker 01 Hmm.
8:46 Speaker 00 And then they went back into uh ten Downing Street, where he will be for a matter of days or a matter of weeks, depending how this unfolds.
8:55 Speaker 01 Gosh, that's not gonna be much fun, is it?
8:56 Speaker 00 Ah, now, I don't know much about uh Victoria Starmer, but I do know from all that I've read and from hearing about from other people, that she is a key person in his life.
9:08 Speaker 01 Hmm.
9:08 Speaker 00 That this weekend, he was making up his mind really very much with her. He'd made lots of phone calls on Friday, Saturday morning, to other politicians to see the lie of the land, and then he sat down with her.
9:22 Speaker 01 Hmm.
9:23 Speaker 00 And she'd be an interesting guest, I think, wouldn't she?
9:26 Speaker 01 Oh, definitely.
9:27 Speaker 00 I mean, her her memories.
9:29 Speaker 01 Yeah.
9:29 Speaker 00 Her own story, but actually the last few days would be intriguing.
9:32 Speaker 01 I mean, it must be very difficult supporting someone that's going through that, don't you think?
9:36 Speaker 00 I I've been lucky enough to know, I suppose, well, as you know, I've known a lot of prime ministers, and I've been lucky enough to know the wives, partners of most of them. The first prime minister's wife I met was Mary Wilson. You've heard of Harold Wilson before your time, but he was a Labour prime minister and a successful one, and had two terms in office, won two elections. And his wife, Mary, was much mocked in her day. Private Eye ran a column, I think, called, you know, it was Mrs. Wilson's Diary, and sort of spoofed her as though she was some lower-middle-class, it was patronizing.
10:11 Speaker 01 Hmm.
10:12 Speaker 00 And she published a book of poetry, and that was rather mocked as well, but it's good poetry. And I read it because it was admired by John Betjeman, and I thought, he's no fool. So I read her poems and I liked them very much. And, as I think you know, I'm a friend of their son, Robin Wilson, who's a professor of mathematics, brilliant man, and so I've got to know the family of it. Mary Wilson lived to be, I think, a hundred and four, remarkable lady. On her hundredth birthday, the late Queen Elizabeth the Second didn't send her a telegram. She invited her round for tea so she could deliver the telegram, saying you're a hundred in person.
10:46 Speaker 01 Oh, that's lovely.
10:47 Speaker 00 So I got to know um Mary Wilson and liked her. I got to know also a bit. And his Thatcher. And he was a bit spoofed, you know. Sent up as though he was some ridiculous. Figure who was always on the bottle enjoying a tincture or playing golf. He was actually a very successful businessman.
11:05 Speaker 01 They like to have a go at these sort of other halfs because Cherie Blair was mocked a bit too.
11:10 Speaker 00 She was, you're absolutely right, and she was a QC. I mean. I mean, extraordinary. She sensibly carried on as Cherie Booth QC. Went on with her career, but you're absolutely right. Do you know one of my happiest memories? I shouldn't really say this. I've forgotten how well I knew Cherie for a while.
11:29 Speaker 01 Was she really good fun?
11:31 Speaker 00 Not just good fun, she's a lovely person. I sprained my ankle at number ten Downing Street and I sat upstairs. Didn't know I should be sharing this with anybody. We sat on a sofa and she, well, she massaged my foot.
11:47 Speaker 01 Oh, I was gonna say, did she give you a massage?
11:48 Speaker 00 She did. She massaged my foot, but in a, in a really love, she massaged the ankle and then she stroked the bottom of my foot.
11:56 Speaker 01 Really, Giles?
11:58 Speaker 00 Oh, my goodness. So I'd forgot, because.
12:01 Speaker 01 But in a medical, in a caring way.
12:03 Speaker 00 In a loving, flirtatious. Lovely way. I was gonna say, I was being flirtatious maybe.
12:10 Speaker 00 Well, it was a long time ago.
12:11 Speaker 01 Did you say you'd broken your ankle?
12:12 Speaker 00 No, I twisted my ankle or something, but it was gen- it was genuine. Because Michelle's always said to me, why do we get this card, Christmas card every year from Tony and Cherie? You didn't really know them. You're Conservative MP. And I've been trying to work, I mean, I, I interviewed Tony Blair a number of times. And he did say to me in the two thousand and one election, he did.
12:31 Speaker 01 Look, this is a brilliant revelation. Cherie Blair massaged my foot. Can't believe this is coming out now. This is front page news, Giles. Forget the resignation, forget Andy Burnham. Cherie Blair massaged my ankle by Gyles Brandreth. This is huge. Clear the front page, guys.
12:50 Speaker 00 It was a kindly moment of affection.
12:53 Speaker 01 I love it. I love it.
12:54 Speaker 00 Actually got on.
12:55 Speaker 01 By the way, sorry to interrupt. If you think I'm ever gonna massage your foot, if you twist your ankle, you've got another thing coming, you've got to call Cherie Blair. There's no way I'm going anywhere near your foot. Yeah, but I'm just saying.
13:08 Speaker 00 Just putting it out there, aren't you?
13:09 Speaker 01 I'm just putting it out there. Don't go thinking if you twist your ankle just now walking down those stairs, it's quite, quite steep stairs where we are. I'll be just, I'll call, straight on the phone to Cherie.
13:20 Speaker 00 Well, moving swiftly on.
13:21 Speaker 01 Yeah, just saying, Charles. Don't get any ideas.
13:24 Speaker 00 I have been lucky enough to know and indeed be fond of a number of Prime Ministers' wives.
13:30 Speaker 01 To have my foot massaged by a number of Prime Ministers' wives. Moving on to today's guest.
13:35 Speaker 00 Ah, I'm putting all the joshing firmly behind me because I'm really excited about today's guest. As I mentioned, I've known a number of Prime Ministers over the years, in fact, all of them. And I've been lucky enough occasionally to meet, well, always to meet their partners. And I know Rishi Sunak, who was Keir Starmer's immediate predecessor. Who, as you remember, only a couple of years ago, stood at that same podium in Downing Street. Do you remember with the rain pouring down as he announced the election that he lost and then handed over? And when he was saying goodbye from that very same lectern, in the background, rather as today,
14:16 Speaker 00 yesterday, Victoria Starmer was standing to one side of Keir Starmer. In the pictures that were taken of Rishi Sunak at the time, standing behind him, right by the door of Den Downing Street, was his wife, Akshata Muthi. And having met both Rishi and Akshata, I thought, well, I hope one day, of course, we'll invite Rishi Sunak to be a guest on Roosevelt. We've had former Prime Ministers and we'd love to have him. But I thought, actually, having spent time chatting to Akshata, what an interesting story she's got to tell. Because she comes from a remarkable, achieving, hugely wealthy family.
14:58 Speaker 00 She's become a philanthropist, she is a mathematician. Her story is very interesting, and so I thought she would make a good guest.
15:07 Speaker 01 Yeah.
15:07 Speaker 00 And you agreed.
15:08 Speaker 01 Absolutely, because I'm a big fan of India, you know, I read my diary, I travelled in India. I love that country. She grew up in Bangalore, which is a beautiful city that I really enjoyed going to. And I think that her story about growing up in a small town, dusty town, she says, eating mangoes off the tree.
15:29 Speaker 02 In India, in a really humble, you know, you say her family's wealthy, but they weren't
15:33 Speaker 00 Hmm.
15:34 Speaker 02 Wealthy when she was young, you know, they they made their wealth by, her dad was a brilliant man, really, and made this amazing company. So it's a very interesting story about someone that, you know, grew up in this family where the parents were just working so hard to build this incredible thing that they did and she saw all that going on around her. It's very interesting.
15:55 Speaker 00 So, look, it's a very interesting, rather special episode of Rosebud.
15:59 Speaker 02 Yeah.
16:00 Speaker 00 So thank you very much for being with us and stay with us and enjoy Akshata Murthy on Rosebud. Cue the music.
16:19 Speaker 00 Akshata Murthy, is that correctly pronounced?
16:23 Speaker 02 Very, very much so. Thank you for making the effort.
16:26 Speaker 00 What does, is the Akshata a first name and the Murthy a surname?
16:30 Speaker 02 Correct. Akshata is my first name and it means infinity in Sanskrit.
16:35 Speaker 00 In Sanskrit, infinity?
16:37 Speaker 02 So in Hindu weddings, Giles, towards the end of the ceremony, some holy rice is sprinkled on the couple. And that rice is called Akshata.
16:48 Speaker 00 Akshata, I should be saying Akshata.
16:50 Speaker 02 It's Akshata, Akshata, Akshata, all work.
16:54 Speaker 00 But which do you prefer, to get it right?
16:56 Speaker 02 Do you know what? I've lived away from home for so long that I'm actually comfortable with all versions of them. In India, it's Akshata.
17:05 Speaker 00 Akshata.
17:06 Speaker 02 That's it.
17:06 Speaker 00 Akshata.
17:07 Speaker 02 Yes.
17:07 Speaker 00 Akshata.
17:08 Speaker 02 And so the holy rice is called Akshata. And that signifies that the couple will, their bond will remain together forever.
17:18 Speaker 00 Lovely, for infinity, forever.
17:20 Speaker 02 Forever.
17:20 Speaker 00 And it's a Hindu?
17:22 Speaker 02 It's a Hindu name and a Hindu tradition.
17:25 Speaker 00 And you are of Hindu upbringing?
17:28 Speaker 02 Yes, I was raised in a Hindu family and I'm practising Hindu, yes.
17:32 Speaker 00 Born, that's where I've got this right, on the twenty fifth of April nineteen eighty?
17:36 Speaker 02 Yes.
17:37 Speaker 00 And I'm now going to ask you, what is your very first memory, Akshata?
17:46 Speaker 02 I'll tell you this Giles, I might get quite emotional. My very first memory is of this man. He used to visit me quite regularly. I was probably between two and three years old. And I remember him being really kind, really generous. He seemed quite sophisticated. He spoke to me in English, not in my mother tongue. I grew up speaking Kannada, which is a language spoken in southern India. But he would speak to me in English. He enforced no rules. He made me the centre of his world. I felt like a princess. And I was always heartbroken when he left.
18:30 Speaker 02 And that man Giles was my dad.
18:32 Speaker 00 Oh my.
18:37 Speaker 00 And why was he visiting only on odd occasions?
18:41 Speaker 02 Because I, until I was about eight five, grew up with my grandparents. And not with my parents.
18:48 Speaker 00 Did you realise this man was your father?
18:51 Speaker 02 And I've thought about that, I think, I was told it certainly. And I called him pa- apa, which is the traditional name for dad in my language Kannada.
19:04 Speaker 02 So I knew it intellectually, I'm sure. But he, it was almost like he was more. He just was this special person in my life. And he came and he went. And I have this image in my head of lying down next to him. He had a nap every afternoon. And I would just stare at him. I mean, I still remember the crook of his arm, what he wore. He would wear this Indian pyjama, checked pyjama bottom. And even to this day, I'm, as you rightly said, I'm forty six almost.
19:43 Speaker 02 He's one of the most special people in my life.
19:45 Speaker 00 Where is this memory taking place? Where are you? At your grandparents' home?
19:49 Speaker 02 So, yes. So I was born and raised in a small town in southern India called Hubli.
19:56 Speaker 00 Hubli?
19:57 Speaker 02 Yeah, Hubli. And I was born in my maternal grandparents' home. My grandfather was an OB-GYN surgeon. And my grandmother-
20:07 Speaker 00 A what surgeon?
20:08 Speaker 02 An obstetrics and gynecologist.
20:10 Speaker 00 OB-GYN. That sounds for obstetrics and gynecology, does it? I love it. Your young mother, this is the language you speak.
20:18 Speaker 02 Sorry.
20:18 Speaker 00 OB-GYN, very good.
20:20 Speaker 02 Yes, and my grandmother was a homemaker.
20:25 Speaker 00 Hmm.
20:26 Speaker 02 They made their family home in Hubli, which was a dusty, small town. It was very hot all the time, still is, I think. Um, it, to me, it was just absolutely joyful to grow up there. One image I have from, from when I was little is, you know, in India, the mango season is a big part of the calendar. And during mango season, my grandmother would put me in a white dress, a sleeveless white short dress. And lunch was mangoes. And I, and, and we wouldn't chop them up, or we would literally suck them whole, the fruit whole, and it was just so joyful.
21:11 Speaker 00 So why are you having to live with your grandparents?
21:13 Speaker 02 Yeah.
21:14 Speaker 00 You have a father, this mystery man, we're going to discover more, and I assume you have a mother as well?
21:19 Speaker 02 Yes.
21:19 Speaker 00 And they were married?
21:20 Speaker 02 Yes.
21:21 Speaker 00 And who was your mother?
21:23 Speaker 02 So, maybe I'll take a couple of steps back.
21:27 Speaker 00 Do.
21:28 Speaker 02 Um, my father was born in nineteen forty-six. I say an almost, almost midnight's child, you know, India gained independence in nineteen forty-seven. He came from a family of eight. But my paternal grandfather, who I never met, who sadly passed away before my parents were even married, he was an idealist. And he-
21:53 Speaker 02 Would encourage my father and his brothers and sisters to think really hard about what they can do for the newly independent India. What value could they add to India, to this young nation? And I think that really planted a seed inside my dad on how whatever he did later on in life, it had to benefit the nation in some way.
22:21 Speaker 00 But the nation, not just the community or the village.
22:24 Speaker 02 No, the nation.
22:27 Speaker 02 And then you have my mother, whose father was a doctor and and she also spent a lot of time with her grandparents. And so now we're talking about my mother's grandfather. He became a history teacher. So she grew up with these incredible stories also of India and Indian myths and Indian heritage and traditions. And so you have these two people, strip them to their kind of basics and they are both motivated by nationhood.
23:06 Speaker 00 Hmm. And how do they meet? Where do they meet?
23:09 Speaker 02 They meet through a mutual friend. They were introduced to each other because they both loved books. And my father was sort of this quite geeky, reserved intellectual who read books all the time. And my mother was quite an outgoing, adventurous, optimistic young woman, but also loved books. My father loved physics and maths and my mother loved history and literature. And they were dating before dating was considered
23:38 Speaker 00 Respectable.
23:39 Speaker 02 Yes.
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24:30 Speaker 06 Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fiber internet.
24:34 Speaker 05 No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.
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24:51 Speaker 00 What did their parents think about them dating?
24:54 Speaker 02 Yes.
24:54 Speaker 00 Because this is an era where the expectation would be the two families would decide, you know, here is a cousin or a friend of the family who would be an appropriate person for you to marry.
25:05 Speaker 02 The arranged marriage concept, you mean. Do you know, that was certainly the norm.
25:10 Speaker 00 Oh.
25:12 Speaker 02 My parents defied the norm.
25:14 Speaker 00 Oh, gosh. And what did their parents make of that? They didn't mind. They accepted it?
25:19 Speaker 02 They accepted it eventually, let's say. But both my parents were incredibly focused on making that partnership work. I think my mother even made a statement at one point where she said to my grandfather... Okay, so if you don't agree for me to marry Murthy, my father, that's fine. It's just I won't ever get married then. Um, so she took a stand. And here's, I think, here's, here's the best, the, one of the many best things about their marriage. So prior to their meeting, they each signed books, books they purchased in a bookshop or whatever, with their name and the date. And once they got together,
26:03 Speaker 02 they would start signing books with both their names and the date. And even now, in our library at home, every single book in our library has both their names and the date and, and a lot of the times the location where they purchased the book.
26:16 Speaker 00 So they were building a library together?
26:18 Speaker 02 They were building a library together.
26:19 Speaker 00 And how many children did they have? How many siblings do you have?
26:22 Speaker 02 So it's me and my younger brother. He's three and a half years younger. And he is, uh, we're very close.
26:30 Speaker 00 And when they married though, what was the plan for them to do for their careers? What was their expectation?
26:36 Speaker 02 So I think my father did come from a family where it was hard to make ends meet. And he knew that he needed to get a job that could help support his, his mother, his siblings who are younger. So he, and he realized that technology was where the world was heading. And he had a brain for engineering, so he studied to be an engineer. And then my mother, again, quite unorthodox. She loved people. She was very bright. So she was advised by my grandfather to be a doctor. He was a doctor. My mother's older sister is a doctor. She, she didn't think she wanted to be a doctor. So she said, well, I'll be an engineer then.
27:22 Speaker 02 My, my grandparents were horrified because women didn't go into engineering. And I'm talking now in the mid seventies in southern India. She was the only woman engineer in her university. If she needed to use the loo, she would have to come back home because there wasn't even a women's loo.
27:43 Speaker 00 Yeah.
27:44 Speaker 02 At university.
27:45 Speaker 00 Because there'd never been any women engineers before.
27:47 Speaker 02 Correct. And by the way, candidly, I think in that time in India, if a girl was overeducated, it was harder to find a groom. Um. That's also, I think, why she felt so understood by my father, who was never threatened by any of that. Anyway, so so she now says, okay, now I need to look for a job, then she reads about one in the paper. And it it says it's for an engineering position at this company called Telco, which was at the time India's largest car manufacturing plant. And it and said something like, women need not apply.
28:31 Speaker 02 And so, of course, my mother reads this and says, well, if that's what they're saying, I'm going to apply.
28:36 Speaker 00 Oh.
28:38 Speaker 02 So she writes a letter to the chairman, the late J R D Tata of the Tata fame and family. And they're still a very well-respected business in India. And she says, well, I saw this letter, I saw this ad even, and I'm really disappointed. And I feel I'm just as qualified. So at the very least, I request you to interview me.
29:08 Speaker 02 And she thought nothing would come of it and and forgot about it. And I think a few weeks later, she received a letter from Mr. Tata's office to come to Bombay to be interviewed.
29:21 Speaker 00 She met the great man, she went straight to the top, I read to the chairman, the chairman said, come and see me.
29:26 Speaker 02 Yes. And she got a job to work um at Telco, which involved working in offices and on the factory floor. And again, there was the only female engineer on the factory floor. So this has been my mother's journey. And and from then on, she has uh taken other adventures on and.
29:47 Speaker 00 But we're coming on to those other adventures. What we've got, though, is these two people, two engineers, who get together.
29:55 Speaker 02 Yes.
29:55 Speaker 00 And it's actually a love match and a fellow-feeling match, which is possibly not part of the tradition of their families.
30:01 Speaker 02 Correct.
30:02 Speaker 00 But the families have to accept it. They get married, they begin to have children quite quickly, I assume.
30:08 Speaker 02 Couple of years later, yeah, because they were, they dated for. Four years and so when they got married.
30:12 Speaker 00 While the family was getting used to it. And I mean, I don't know. I think of India, we think of India as being a traditional society. When you say they dated, we mean they dated. They didn't move in together.
30:22 Speaker 02 No, they did not move in together, no.
30:24 Speaker 00 So they are dating, they get married, they then move in together.
30:27 Speaker 02 Yes.
30:28 Speaker 00 And then children come along.
30:30 Speaker 02 Children come along.
30:30 Speaker 00 And the expectation would be that the parents would bring up the children, wouldn't they?
30:35 Speaker 02 Absolutely, absolutely.
30:37 Speaker 00 So why didn't they?
30:39 Speaker 02 So there's a short answer and a long answer. And the short answer was, they had me nineteen eighty. They were both working full time because there was no concept of maternity leave.
30:50 Speaker 02 They, uh, my mother had me in Hubli and then took me to Pune where they were living and working at the time. And it became impossible to have a newborn and two full-time jobs. So when I was ninety days old, my mother met my sis- her sister, my aunt. And her mother, my maternal grandmother in the airport in northern Karnataka and handed me over. And said from now on, she is your daughter.
31:20 Speaker 02 And.
31:23 Speaker 00 What do you feel about this? I sense you feel some conflict about this.
31:29 Speaker 02 Do you know, Giles, I've genuinely thought about whether I feel conflict. I think I feel emotional. I feel emotional because I am so close to my mother. I am equally close to my mother's older sister, my aunt.
31:49 Speaker 02 And I was very close to my maternal grandmother, my late maternal grandmother, who always told me, by the way. That she uh was the same age as the late Queen. So she had great respect for the late Queen. So, so she passed away in twenty twelve, um, but I feel so close to these three women. And I would, Mother's Day would roll around and I would send three Mother's Day cards. Um, but is, and I, and as I've gotten older, I have asked myself, have I felt resentment? Towards my parents.
32:27 Speaker 02 And I genuinely don't, I really don't. I feel sadness, and the sadness I feel is for my mother to, to let go of this newborn and your first child.
32:43 Speaker 02 I think my mother feels sadness. My mother felt sadness, and I think she still feels sadness.
32:50 Speaker 02 But not resentment.
32:53 Speaker 00 But it is unusual.
32:54 Speaker 02 It is unusual, yes.
32:56 Speaker 00 That your mother literally gives you away when you're only three months old.
33:01 Speaker 02 Hmm.
33:01 Speaker 00 And as a consequence of that, she almost becomes like an auntie to you.
33:05 Speaker 02 Exactly.
33:06 Speaker 00 That she visits you.
33:07 Speaker 02 Yes.
33:08 Speaker 00 As an auntie mate.
33:09 Speaker 02 Mm hmm.
33:10 Speaker 00 And your father is almost this magic charmer.
33:13 Speaker 02 He is.
33:14 Speaker 00 Who comes and you realize there's this lovely man in my life.
33:17 Speaker 02 Yeah.
33:17 Speaker 00 What fun he is. We're not quite sure what our relationship are. I called him father, but anyway, he keeps going away. That is a bit unusual.
33:25 Speaker 02 It is.
33:25 Speaker 00 And they are choosing to do this because they together have this feeling that they are going to give their first duty is maybe not to be parents, but to fulfill this ambition of giving something to India.
33:42 Speaker 02 To their nation.
33:43 Speaker 00 Something huge.
33:44 Speaker 02 Hmm.
33:45 Speaker 00 And what we're going to discover is that in their different ways, they both managed to do that.
33:50 Speaker 02 Hmm.
33:50 Speaker 00 Because they're starting out doing it because they haven't got any money.
33:54 Speaker 02 Yes.
33:54 Speaker 00 To bring you up.
33:55 Speaker 02 Yes.
33:56 Speaker 00 But if what I read in the papers is right, your father is now one of the wealthiest people in all India, if not possibly the world. So he didn't waste his time when he came back to charm you. Because the rest of the time he was out there doing whatever he did to make his fortune. How did he make his fortune? What was he doing when he wasn't with you, your dad?
34:17 Speaker 02 So he was i- i- in the midst of setting up this company for which he is now well known.
34:25 Speaker 00 Which is called?
34:26 Speaker 02 Called Infosys.
34:27 Speaker 00 Yeah.
34:27 Speaker 02 He founded it in nineteen eighty one.
34:31 Speaker 00 Yet when you were a year old.
34:32 Speaker 02 Yes, that's right. And in fact, even to this day, my father will tell you if he was sitting here. He has three children, me, born in nineteen eighty, Infosys born in nineteen eighty one, and my brother born in nineteen eighty three.
34:45 Speaker 00 Which is his favorite? Well, probably he's not allowed to have favourites.
34:49 Speaker 02 No, he's not. And, and if you said to me when I was younger, what you felt about Infosys, before I had my own family.
34:57 Speaker 00 Hmm.
34:59 Speaker 02 I wouldn't be lying if I said Infosys is my sibling. All my memories of growing up are so deeply intertwined with the building of Infosys. I mean, I remember the first office, the, the day that my father signed his first contract, my mother and I would host Infosys birthday parties. I mean, on and on the list goes.
35:23 Speaker 00 Is he still alive?
35:24 Speaker 02 My father, yes.
35:25 Speaker 00 Is he still running the company, head of the company?
35:28 Speaker 02 Not at all, no. Because he set it up, Giles, not to be, unlike a lot of other Indian companies, this wasn't a family business. He set it up as a professional entity. So he, he got five younger, what he called co-founders, to set the company up in nineteen eighty-one. And he borrowed, what today is fifty pounds, six thousand Indian rupees of savings from my mother, as startup capital. Because my father didn't come from money. He was a man with a dream. I mean, the original Silicon Valley tech bro, if you, if you think of
36:07 Speaker 02 it. And he also wanted to prove that in the modern India, it didn't matter who you were or what money you had or didn't have, or who you knew, as long as you had a dream and you worked hard.
36:28 Speaker 00 Know, knowing him well, which I assume you now do, though he didn't maybe as a little girl.
36:32 Speaker 02 Yeah.
36:33 Speaker 00 What did he have that enabled him to take fifty pounds, the equivalent of fifty pounds, and turn it into literally billions?
36:42 Speaker 02 Hmm.
36:42 Speaker 00 In a lifetime? What are the qualities as a person that he had?
36:47 Speaker 02 I mean, that's such a great question, but I'll say it wasn't just him.
36:50 Speaker 00 Oh, God, we know that.
36:52 Speaker 02 He inspired a team and it took time. So it wasn't an overnight success at all. So that, that was the journey. But what, the question is, what are those qualities? I'll tell you what the Infosys motto was when he founded it. It was powered by intellect, driven by values.
37:11 Speaker 02 And so he was a mix of the two. You know, he had deep intellect for computer science and technology. But he is deeply passionate about the values he stands for, which are honesty, which he calls integrity, resilience, hard work. And he said this when he founded Infosys. I'm not looking to build the most profitable business. I'm looking to build the most respected business.
37:46 Speaker 00 And did he succeed in that, do you think?
37:48 Speaker 02 And he did. And I think even as the technological wave was sweeping over India, Infosys was always known for being the company that stood out because they had the highest levels of integrity.
38:06 Speaker 00 And what's his greatest, in your view, greatest philanthropic achievement? The good works that he's done? That you, pick me one, give me just one.
38:14 Speaker 02 Sure, sure. My father is a huge believer in social mobility. He came up with this concept, which had been around, but he used it actively in this, in the setting up of his business. It's called compassionate capitalism. So make money, but make money while you're also being compassionate to everyone around you. So he took on this concept of the employee stock option plan. That was well known on the West Coast. So you set up a company and you give a small piece of the business to your employees. Everyone got a piece of the business.
38:53 Speaker 00 He had three children, the middle one being Infosys.
38:55 Speaker 02 Yes.
38:56 Speaker 00 Is probably the one that had most attention during your early years. What is your sweetest memory of him? Your happiest memory of you with your dad when you were a little girl or girl?
39:06 Speaker 02 Absolutely. So he would travel a lot because the client base for Infosys was always international, foreign clients. And so there were years when he traveled truly three hundred and fifty days during the year.
39:23 Speaker 00 What, three hundred and fifty days on the road, flying around the world?
39:27 Speaker 02 Yes.
39:27 Speaker 00 Selling whatever emphasis was.
39:29 Speaker 02 Selling software.
39:30 Speaker 00 Selling software.
39:30 Speaker 02 Yes, yes. I'm not saying that was every year, but there were some years. And so when he was in town, it was a very special time.
39:37 Speaker 00 I bet.
39:38 Speaker 02 Much like that memory I described to you at the beginning. Um, and he had this tradition, he would take my younger brother and I out to this restaurant. It was called Max Fast Food in Bangalore. He loved it because it was both Indian and Western.
39:55 Speaker 00 Hmm.
39:56 Speaker 02 We ate pizzas and he had some Indian food. And there was a toy shop around the corner called Sapphires. And I always got a new Barbie doll and my brother got a new He-Man toy figure. And we ended up having so many dolls and figurines because that was my father's way.
40:13 Speaker 00 Hmm.
40:14 Speaker 02 Of showing, I don't want to say showing love, but giving us his time and and building that connection with us. And I, it's etched in my memory. So when my children, I, I don't know if it's still around these, these shops, but I, I, they were certainly around a decade ago. So I took my kids. And they somehow didn't find it as exciting as, as I did.
40:35 Speaker 00 Is there a gap, though, in your life, in your head? Do you ensure that your husband, Rishi, does not give himself totally over to work? And there are years when he's only available out of three hundred and sixty-five days. Only fifteen of those is he available to his family.
40:55 Speaker 02 I think Rishi's of a different generation. Where, uh, the concept of parenthood is much more shared. Um, Rishi also, while he has had a very busy few years, he was around when the girls were much younger. He was a local MP. We established a home in North Yorkshire. So we had that time together. Before he got into frontline politics. And, and so I think.
41:29 Speaker 02 Two things, one, I grew up where I didn't feel this dirt.
41:34 Speaker 02 And, and so I, I didn't think, when I had my children, gosh, I don't want my family to be that way. So whenever Rishi was busy and, and couldn't focus as much, say, on family life. That's all I knew growing up. And that made a lot of sense to me. And this is where this, this kind of bigger, this bigger entity that was in my life growing up, emphasis, but India. You know, the bigger cause was always India.
42:05 Speaker 02 So when, I, I look at it the same way with Rishi, you know, there is something bigger. For better or worse, that's how I think about it.
42:13 Speaker 00 Well, most unusual. So what was your mother's contribution? We're going to get back to your family life in a moment with the aunties and your grandparents. But what was your mother's contribution to India? What has it been in her life?
42:23 Speaker 02 Sure. So, so she, uh, she engaged in so many projects, big and small. So I'll, I'll give you an example of a big and a small. So she, she, because again, because of my father, she saw the power of entrepreneurship to transform lives. And so she started giving out these micro grants to men and women. Who, uh, didn't have a job or were in transition periods of their lives to start very small businesses. And those were one-off grants and it was a tailoring shop or it was a corner shop. Some people bought a couple of cattle and started a milking business.
43:02 Speaker 02 But then she, she, and you know, this love for books that I talked to you about. She said, look, I'm going to build a library in every village in my state. Because every child should be exposed to reading and books.
43:14 Speaker 00 This is a large state, I imagine.
43:15 Speaker 02 It's a large state, that's right. And, uh, and she started small. So she went to villages around Hubli where she grew up. And she, she would start in, in this, in a little shop, would carry some books. It then grew in some places to someone's home, a room dedicated in, in sort of the local, uh, head's home. And then as that grew, she started doing this in schools. And then as that grew, she had standalone buildings. And then she expanded it out of the state. Um, I wish I had the numbers for you, but tens of thousands of libraries across India.
44:00 Speaker 02 And for for her, it was to get young people to discover the joy of reading. Because that's how she became curious about.
44:11 Speaker 00 And then she then became a writer.
44:12 Speaker 02 Right from when she was probably a teenager, she wrote, she wrote for fun. And now she writes primarily in English, she writes primarily for children. She writes about a few different topics. She writes on Indian mythology and. Uh, it's our version of sort of Greek tales, um, ancient Greek tales. Uh, she does that for ancient India. She writes, uh, uh, kind of like Aesop's fables, you know, stories with a moral ending. That, uh, she has acquired through her experi- life experiences, but also the experiences that she got, uh, creating the foundation.
44:51 Speaker 00 But but what is extraordinary is doing my homework.
44:55 Speaker 02 Yes.
44:55 Speaker 00 I looked up bestselling authors in India.
44:58 Speaker 02 Yes.
44:58 Speaker 00 And she turns out to be possibly the bestselling children's author in the whole of India.
45:04 Speaker 02 Yes.
45:05 Speaker 00 Which may now be the most populous country in the world, if not.
45:08 Speaker 02 It is, yes, it is now, yeah.
45:10 Speaker 00 I mean, what we're talking about here, these two extraordinary people who happen to be your parents.
45:15 Speaker 02 Yes.
45:15 Speaker 00 Want just achievers, but super achievers. And the lesson I'm learning is if you want to be a super achiever, give your children to the grandparents. To free up the time to get on with what you want to do. But you have covered that because your family was very loving and giving.
45:31 Speaker 02 Absolutely, they were.
45:32 Speaker 00 Tell me about village life when you were a little girl, because now you live this super sophisticated life. When you were a tiny little girl, what was village like? What did you eat?
45:42 Speaker 02 So so Hubli was was not quite a village, but it wasn't a city. So it was a small town.
45:46 Speaker 00 Mm hmm.
45:47 Speaker 02 My grandfather was still a practicing doctor at the time. And he himself was quite unorthodox because trust a man in the fifties to pick obstetrics and gynecology as his, his profession when women didn't want to go to male doctors. But, but anyway, so he, he was still a, and, and he worked for, for the local government hospital, we say in India, but you know, the NHS.
46:14 Speaker 00 Is it like it is in this country? Are there classes in the sense that would it right to describe this as a middle-class family?
46:21 Speaker 02 Exactly.
46:21 Speaker 00 Because they're professional people?
46:22 Speaker 02 Exactly, middle-class. My grandfather had saved enough to build his own home. It was a lovely bungalow, three bedrooms with mango tree in the backyard, green mangoes, I can still picture them, so fragrant, coconut trees, gooseberry trees. You know, you grow up in the tropics, those are the advantages. They enrolled me in a little nursery school and I was actually talking to my mother's older sister, my aunt, earlier this week. And she was reminding me that this nursery school was literally in a ditch and it was called the ditch school. You know, it was not fancy at all. So today, you know, we all worry about where we send our kids to school and nursery.
47:07 Speaker 00 They were in a ditch?
47:08 Speaker 02 It was literally in a ditch, yes.
47:09 Speaker 00 Almost by the side of the road, get down to the ditch.
47:11 Speaker 02 That's it.
47:11 Speaker 00 That's where the lessons take place.
47:12 Speaker 02 That's it, yes. And I studied in Canada. I didn't speak a word of English till I was five.
47:17 Speaker 00 You spoke the local language?
47:20 Speaker 02 I spoke Canada.
47:21 Speaker 00 But when did you move to Bangalore?
47:22 Speaker 02 At five.
47:23 Speaker 00 Ah, and that, is that a cultural change?
47:25 Speaker 02 That was a cultural change. It was a, it was a big city. Um, I also had to move away from living with my grandparents to now living with my parents.
47:35 Speaker 00 Oh.
47:36 Speaker 02 And that was hard because.
47:40 Speaker 02 I hadn't really ever lived just with them. So we were now that nuclear family in a different city, in a big city. I, all my childhood friends lived in Hubley. And that was a big move for a five-year-old. So I, I remember I took my grandmother's sari as my teddy to sleep with every night because I was so attached to her.
48:07 Speaker 02 But you know, I've, I've had a life, and I'm sure we'll talk a bit about this. I've had a life of big transitions, Giles. Um, and maybe it started young and, and you get on with it.
48:16 Speaker 00 You just get on with it. So in Bangalore, you're seeing more of your father or is he out of work?
48:20 Speaker 02 I'm seeing more of my father, of course I am, because they made a conscious decision to set up the headquarters for Infosys in Bangalore. Before that, it was sort of working from their apartment and things like that in, in Pune. And yes, we had, we had a, a more traditional family unit. My brother was born and he was two and a bit by then. And I enrolled in school reception.
48:49 Speaker 00 Did you do well at school?
48:50 Speaker 02 I did well at school, yes.
48:53 Speaker 00 And were you popular? Were you liked?
48:54 Speaker 02 I was, I wouldn't say I was one of the popular kids. I was one of the
49:00 Speaker 02 quieter kids. I was understated and I was hugely passionate about history, literature and writing.
49:12 Speaker 00 Did, did you in your head already think this is what I'm going to do? I mean, when you're 10 or 11, you're beginning to think what my life is going to be or not?
49:19 Speaker 02 I did, I did.
49:20 Speaker 00 And what did you hope for?
49:23 Speaker 02 Do you know, that's quite complicated and I'll tell you why. You know, I grew up in this family of super achievers. In the India I grew up, if you did well at school. Then you went into either engineering or medicine. Much like my mother. I felt that if I had to make my parents proud, I should be an engineer. But I didn't, I didn't relate it. I, it didn't speak to me.
49:51 Speaker 02 And so I, I had this conflict in my head where I, I sort of knew
49:57 Speaker 02 what I loved. I mean, I knew what I loved, but I felt like I should love something else. And uh, and ultimately I, I uh, didn't end up becoming an engineer and
50:09 Speaker 00 You did.
50:09 Speaker 02 I did not. No, no. I studied economics and French. But I, I think at the time, I felt like I was letting my parents down.
51:00 Speaker 00 And at your next school, your secondary school?
51:02 Speaker 02 Yes.
51:03 Speaker 00 Are you, you go on being quite a good achiever?
51:05 Speaker 02 I do, yes.
51:06 Speaker 00 Was it a boy's school or a girl's?
51:07 Speaker 02 It was an all-girls school.
51:08 Speaker 00 All-girls?
51:09 Speaker 02 Yes.
51:10 Speaker 00 But did you have any crushes?
51:11 Speaker 02 I did, I did. So um, you know, I went to an all-girls school. So it was slim pickings when it came to boys. Um, but my mother, who was um, a professor at this uh, women's college.
51:29 Speaker 02 She did her day job, which was to teach computer science. But again, she loves people, she loves mentoring young people. So she became the unofficial schools kind of councillor. And so she would finish teaching at, say, midday or two P M. And then she would open it up to help young women navigate life. So there would be lines and lines around her office. Not of young women coming to ask her questions about the computer science curriculum, but about love and life and rifts they had with their parents or what they should do when they grow up. And so she had one student she was particularly close to who she was helping.
52:15 Speaker 02 And um.
52:17 Speaker 02 This student had a younger brother and he was a couple of years older. He played the guitar, he wore Pink Floyd T shirts. Again, this this girl who was brought up in quite a traditional upbringing. You know, you meet this boy, he um played rock music, listened to rock music. It just felt so exciting. He didn't know, of course. You know, it was just me staring and oogling.
52:47 Speaker 00 We think of people like me who know nothing about these things. Think about you young people in India being quite innocent to this period. And if you have, like me, seen and enjoyed a few Bollywood films.
53:00 Speaker 02 Yes.
53:00 Speaker 00 You think there's a kind of innocent fairy tale.
53:03 Speaker 02 Hmm.
53:03 Speaker 00 Approach to romance.
53:05 Speaker 02 Hmm.
53:05 Speaker 00 That it's all rather lovely.
53:07 Speaker 02 Hmm.
53:08 Speaker 00 Musical, a lot of dancing.
53:10 Speaker 02 Frolicking.
53:10 Speaker 00 And then it ends happily ever after.
53:12 Speaker 02 Yes.
53:12 Speaker 00 Um, so did you have, did you think about romantic things in your head? What was going on in your head?
53:22 Speaker 02 Do you know what? I had quite an innocent childhood, Giles. I mean, my daughters don't believe this when I say it, but I had much longer hair. And I was fifteen. And my aunt would um.
53:36 Speaker 02 Braid my hair in the mornings and she would make me do one of two things. Either recite times tables up to twenty five or recite verses in Sanskrit. None of this sort of, you know, listening to Bollywood music or. It it was a constant focus on learning and tradition and values.
54:05 Speaker 00 So at school, you're this sixth form, basically, boys and girls.
54:11 Speaker 02 Yes.
54:12 Speaker 00 There is clearly a tug in your head.
54:14 Speaker 02 Mm.
54:14 Speaker 00 Between the traditional old world.
54:16 Speaker 02 Yes.
54:17 Speaker 00 That you come from.
54:17 Speaker 02 Very much.
54:18 Speaker 00 And the excitement of the new world, but you're clever. You're going to go to college. What's the college you're going to go to?
54:25 Speaker 02 So I went to a small liberal arts college in America on the West Coast, outside of Los Angeles.
54:32 Speaker 00 Because by now, your father has become very much an international person, the businesses are.
54:36 Speaker 02 Well, he's the business has done well, um, and my parents can afford to send me to college abroad. But, you know, I had three jobs in in college, so I still needed to to contribute in some way.
54:51 Speaker 00 But you were away from home.
54:52 Speaker 02 But I was away from home.
54:53 Speaker 00 The the extraordinary thing is, is this little girl from this little, not this small town.
54:57 Speaker 02 Yes.
54:57 Speaker 00 This mango eating little child.
54:59 Speaker 02 Yes, speaking in Canada.
55:00 Speaker 00 Uh, speaking in Canada.
55:01 Speaker 02 Yeah.
55:01 Speaker 00 Brought up by a lovely grandmother and aunties, um, who is slowly blossoming. And now is suddenly sent to America.
55:09 Speaker 02 Yes.
55:10 Speaker 00 Aged eighteen.
55:11 Speaker 02 Eighteen.
55:11 Speaker 00 Hey.
55:12 Speaker 02 Yes.
55:13 Speaker 00 And yoi, here I am. But you've been doing philanthropy already. I mean, I read a lovely story about you teaching a boy, uh.
55:20 Speaker 02 Yes, yes, that's right. So when I was, well, let me, I'll I'll share another a a little story, actually. So when we were.
55:30 Speaker 02 So my brother and I never celebrated our birthdays. So whenever it was our.
55:35 Speaker 00 For what reason?
55:36 Speaker 02 So whenever it was our birthdays, my mother would say, well, how much do you think a birthday party costs? She would sort of calculate and give or take two hundred rupees, three hundred rupees. And she said, well, instead of you guys having a birthday party, you can either pick a charity of your choice or I will talk to you about a few different causes that might be meaningful to you and we will go and give this money to that charity. And all I wanted at age eight was, you know, a birthday cake and balloons. And I didn't, that wasn't what we did. And so, and so, yes, was that more than mildly annoying at age eight, yes?
56:21 Speaker 02 Did all my friends have birthday parties? Did I invite everyone? Yes. But my mother said, no, this is just how we do things. And so, age sixteen, oh fifteen actually, I was already thinking about how can I do things that in my own small way, I can help others, impact others positively. And so she introduced me to a blind school, a school for the blind, sorry. And I met this young man, his name is Anand. And he, I used to read to him and I would scribe some of his exams.
57:07 Speaker 02 And that got me thinking, well, this is one person, but we should be helping so many more. And how can we do that? And my mother and I would talk about, well, what, what really.
57:25 Speaker 02 Is one's duty? Is it to look after ourselves and our families? Is it to look after ourselves and the communities in which we live? Is it to look after ourselves, our communities and something beyond? Those were the conversations I was having with her, I was about fifteen, maybe sixteen. And so that's when my parents had that discussion and my mother founded the Emphasis Foundation.
57:53 Speaker 00 You are, this is extraordinary, because with my daughters at that sort of age, we were watching Friends.
57:59 Speaker 02 Yeah.
57:59 Speaker 00 I don't think.
58:00 Speaker 02 We didn't get Friends in India.
58:01 Speaker 00 I didn't think I was instilling any of these wonderful values. So this is the person who ends up in California.
58:07 Speaker 02 That's right.
58:08 Speaker 00 And what is, you get a degree?
58:10 Speaker 02 Yes, so I I got my undergraduate degree in economics and French. And and, you know, I I was so close to my dad and valued his input so much. Every semester, I would send him my course catalogue. And it would take like three weeks to get to India, the physical mail. And he would give me suggestions for courses. And um I would incorporate a lot of those suggestions, you know, I really looked up to him, I really trusted him. And I I'll say this, you know, my dad has been my hero.
58:48 Speaker 00 Hmm. Well done him.
58:50 Speaker 02 Yeah.
58:51 Speaker 00 I mean, this is the way to do it.
58:53 Speaker 02 Yes.
58:53 Speaker 00 You know, fifteen days a year, but I'm a hero. The mistake I made was being around my children all this time, because I'm certainly not their hero. Dearie me, this is an educational podcast.
59:03 Speaker 02 Yes.
59:05 Speaker 00 So when do you, is Rishi your first proper boyfriend?
59:09 Speaker 02 No.
59:10 Speaker 00 Oh.
59:12 Speaker 02 I um.
59:15 Speaker 02 I was very close to someone else. And um.
59:20 Speaker 02 It was one of the reasons, actually, I ended up picking Stanford in San Francisco because he was based there.
59:27 Speaker 00 And why didn't that go anywhere? Because you were too young?
59:30 Speaker 02 No, because I met Rishi Giles.
59:32 Speaker 00 Oh, competition. You met him out there, did you, Rishi?
59:36 Speaker 02 I met him at Stanford University where I was enrolled to get a master's in business administration, an MBA, and Rishi was there also.
59:46 Speaker 00 What's he got? What does it take?
59:48 Speaker 02 What's he got that the other person didn't?
59:50 Speaker 00 What has he got? What did he have then? How old were you both?
59:53 Speaker 02 We were twenty-four. We were just friends, actually, in the beginning.
1:00:00 Speaker 02 Rishi was this incredibly energetic, fun-loving, British. Everyone loved his accent.
1:00:12 Speaker 02 And I was his friend and I would help him out because Rishi was always rushing around and he was looking to buy a car but couldn't find a good deal. So sometimes I would drive him to places. That's how we got to know each other. And what I loved about Rishi is his complete love for his country. I mean, he would talk about the UK all the time. In the UK, the supermarkets are better because of whatever reason. In the UK, the gardens are better. In the UK, the education is better.
1:00:55 Speaker 00 So far, you're certainly right about the gardens. Keep going. Did you counter that, though, with how much you loved your country? Given this upbringing you had had of parents who were there to make India aware of the history and the importance and the contribution they've got to make, did you fight back? Or were you so wooed, seduced by him?
1:01:16 Speaker 02 I wasn't wooed or seduced at all. Do you know what? I was intrigued because I hadn't met someone my age who spoke in that way.
1:01:28 Speaker 02 And so he reminded me a lot of my parents.
1:01:31 Speaker 00 How quickly did you realise, actually, we're going to be a couple, this is going to go on?
1:01:36 Speaker 02 Oh, only after we graduated.
1:01:38 Speaker 00 Oh, so it was a while.
1:01:39 Speaker 02 It was a while because I wasn't sure, because Rishi was quite honest with me very early on in the relationship, that my home will be in the UK. And I wasn't quite sure about that. So it took me some time to make sense of it. You know, he knew what his path was. And then the question was for me, do I follow his path? Or do I make my own? So I, I, I lived in San Francisco, Rishi lived in London, we had a three-year long-distance relationship.
1:02:15 Speaker 00 So it can work, because people say it can't work.
1:02:18 Speaker 02 Yes, it was, well, because we, we did have those couple of years together, you know, so we were together and then we went um off a bit, um. And it was hard. But it was also hard because I spent that time really questioning what I want.
1:02:35 Speaker 00 Have you given up your life to actually his life? In the sense that you are an achieving person, you're doing great things together now. Philanthropic things, like the Richmond Project, which we must talk about. But you have had two girls?
1:02:50 Speaker 02 Two girls.
1:02:50 Speaker 00 Two girls. You, then he got into politics, then you had to be a constituency wife, I know what it's like, because I have one. And now have a daughter who's an MP, so I know what being a constituency husband involves. Uh, he then quickly uh climbed the ladder, found himself Chancellor of the Exchequer. Eventually found himself as Prime Minister. Uh, and then, you know, it rained on his parade and that came to an end. But the point is, we are meeting because I met you because I knew the Prime Minister.
1:03:19 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:03:20 Speaker 00 Uh, and I thought, you're brilliant. But I'm now sitting here, I'm realising that you were brought up to make an impact on where you came from, your duty, that was India. You gave up your life for this man. Do you feel that sometimes?
1:03:36 Speaker 02 I'll tell you what, Giles. I think in so many ways, Rishi's life and my life and the coming together, the life we have created is so similar to my parents. I think they individually could have done incredible things. But they came together and I, and I think the whole was genuinely greater than the sum of its parts. And I think I saw that in Rishi. And he inspired me. And he moved me.
1:04:10 Speaker 02 And, and I
1:04:13 Speaker 02 I love Rishi and I know Rishi loves me. And there's nothing we would not do for each other. But I don't even view it as a sacrifice. I view, you know, it's interesting, you say I rightly, I grew up in India. And I, I am proudly Indian. But there's something else my parents did for me subconsciously. Which is this concept of a nation is but a giant community. And whichever nation you make your home, you give to it. And you give to it in your fullest way. And the UK is my home.
1:04:49 Speaker 00 Did you take it personally or maybe you spared it? But when Rishi, already when he was Chancellor, but particularly when he became Prime Minister, there was lots in the press about you being a hugely wealthy family, having had privileged childhoods, people didn't know the detail of your particular childhood, but basically it was, these are hugely A, what could they know about real life? And B, you know, are they paying their taxes? There was lots of stuff like that. Was it water over duck's back? Did you notice it? Does it matter?
1:05:26 Speaker 02 Look, I would be lying if I said some of that didn't hurt. And I think it's never nice to have negative headlines in the press. And it's never nice when, especially when they're not quite true. Or they're sort of misunderstood. So that did hurt. I also understood that this is the world of politics. I mean, you know that. Um, and that's part and parcel of it and.
1:05:54 Speaker 02 You say, okay, this is, this is what it is. And you move forward the best way you can, and that's really what I tried to do. You know, I, I made changes, I didn't want there to be continuous distraction. And I realised that actually what really matters is why we're doing it. Why we're, why Rishi is in public service, in elected office.
1:06:20 Speaker 00 Were you able to laugh together?
1:06:22 Speaker 02 Absolutely.
1:06:23 Speaker 00 Because I, do you remember, well, of course, you won't have forgotten, the day that he announced the general election. And that terrible downpour. The poor fellow, what does he do? Can't stop, you've got to keep going. So he gets drowned and then has to return. Were you in Downing Street that day?
1:06:36 Speaker 02 I was, I was, I was behind the, the window watching him. And I'll tell you what, it was, it was, it was tough. It was tough because that. That period was a tough time. And he goes out and, as you rightly say, you know, he starts making the speech and the, the. Drops become what felt like a deluge.
1:07:04 Speaker 02 But hey, that's, that's, I think we, as we've spoken, you know, you get on with it. And he got on with it and he came back inside. And my mother called me. And she said, gosh, Akshata, you and Rishi are so lucky. And I said, what do you mean? And he was, you know, it was quite a busy day, it was chaotic. And she said, Akshata, in Indian culture, when it rains.
1:07:31 Speaker 02 It's a sign of good luck. So it's actually auspicious to have rain when you have big moments. So she said, how lucky are you that you had rain during this, this moment? And that just took away. Whatever angst there might have been inside.
1:07:53 Speaker 00 What was the best moment of being the Prime Minister's wife?
1:07:56 Speaker 02 Oh Giles, I'll tell you. I love British history. So when I moved to the UK, my way of making sense of, well, North Yorkshire actually, when Rishi became in, was selected and then elected as an MP, my way of making sense of that place was to read history. So during the, when it was the coronation and sitting there in the Abbey and being and feeling a part of this incredible history, this thread of history that has been woven through a thousand years, you know, craning my neck to see King Edward's chair, I mean, I get goosebumps even as I talk to you about it.
1:08:37 Speaker 00 You're only forty-six.
1:08:40 Speaker 02 Not yet forty-six in April, yes.
1:08:42 Speaker 00 So you're only forty-five.
1:08:44 Speaker 02 I'm only forty-five.
1:08:45 Speaker 00 Forty-five.
1:08:46 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:08:48 Speaker 00 And you have these parents.
1:08:50 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:08:51 Speaker 00 What are you gonna do? This, next, what are you gonna do in the next thirty or forty years, actually?
1:08:57 Speaker 02 I mean, look, as you rightly say, we are only forty-five.
1:09:04 Speaker 02 Our first endeavour and something that we are so proud of and we care deeply about is the Richmond Project.
1:09:11 Speaker 00 Which in a nutshell is what?
1:09:13 Speaker 02 First of all, named after Richmond in North Yorkshire, where, which is Rishi's
1:09:19 Speaker 02 patch and he's still the local MP there. So the Richmond Project is all about transforming people's lives by giving them greater number confidence.
1:09:28 Speaker 00 Is there anything you're ashamed of? Anything that you didn't, anything you didn't once say to somebody or you regret now? Something?
1:09:40 Speaker 02 Hmm, gosh, I really have to think about that one.
1:09:43 Speaker 00 Well, it's good. There's so many things that I'm ashamed of or at least embarrassed by, it's wonderful.
1:09:50 Speaker 02 I'm sure there will be some things that I will have regretted.
1:09:58 Speaker 00 Give me one of those.
1:09:59 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:10:05 Speaker 02 Who?
1:10:07 Speaker 02 Uh.
1:10:10 Speaker 02 I'm having a complete mind lag at the moment.
1:10:12 Speaker 00 That's okay, because you are somebody who tries to be good.
1:10:16 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:10:16 Speaker 00 You try, I mean, you try always to tell the truth.
1:10:19 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:10:20 Speaker 00 This idea of integrity is important to you. And what do you do to unwind?
1:10:25 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:10:25 Speaker 00 You and Rishi.
1:10:26 Speaker 02 I read history and I'm currently reading a book called The Man Who Knew Infinity.
1:10:32 Speaker 00 Oh, given that's your name.
1:10:34 Speaker 02 Yeah, that, that, there you go.
1:10:35 Speaker 00 Achita means infinity, the man who knew infinity.
1:10:38 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:10:38 Speaker 00 Is this the autobiography of Rishi Sunak?
1:10:41 Speaker 02 No, hardly. It's about this incredible Indian mathematician who came to England to go to Cambridge in the, uh, in nineteen thirteen or nineteen fourteen. He transformed the way we think about numbers and his work is relevant even today, whether that be in AI or cancer research. But he had a very tragic life, I think. He died incredibly young at thirty-two and so I'm reading his biography at the moment.
1:11:13 Speaker 00 To me, as you know, because I'm a fan of yours.
1:11:16 Speaker 02 Very kind.
1:11:17 Speaker 00 I love you, I think you're wonderful. But to some people, they will think you are odd.
1:11:21 Speaker 02 Hmm.
1:11:22 Speaker 00 There is something odd about your childhood.
1:11:24 Speaker 02 Hmm.
1:11:24 Speaker 00 Coming from this extraordinary achieving family, all the wealth that you've been surrounded by, that you are...
1:11:31 Speaker 02 Not grown up in Giles.
1:11:32 Speaker 00 No, no, no, I accept. I mean, the journey has been extraordinary and also there was hard graft.
1:11:36 Speaker 02 Hmm.
1:11:37 Speaker 00 Your parents gave you up so that they could make the achievement. All that I'm taking.
1:11:42 Speaker 02 Hmm.
1:11:43 Speaker 00 But people who don't know you will think, oh, isn't she odd?
1:11:47 Speaker 02 Hmm.
1:11:48 Speaker 00 She's reading this book about a mathematician. Um, you know, she's, they're like, oh, they are very, quite an odd couple, these two. Are you conscious of that? Are you conscious that other people do look at you as being a bit unusual? Does that bother you? Or have I got it totally wrong?
1:12:05 Speaker 02 No, I mean, look, we have certainly had, um...
1:12:11 Speaker 02 One might say an incredible life, one might say a life out of the ordinary. But then again, I've talked to you about my parents and their lives a bit, and that's who we are, and we are proud of that and we're grateful to have
1:12:31 Speaker 02 the interest and the opportunities that we do.
1:12:33 Speaker 00 Three more quick questions.
1:12:34 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:12:35 Speaker 00 A moment of joy from your life.
1:12:39 Speaker 02 Do you know, since um we have um moved away from Downing Street, we've been able to spend more time together as a family.
1:12:49 Speaker 02 And there will be the odd moment, well, actually, I shouldn't say odd, we have had some real uh uh cherished moments where Rishi and I and the girls come together and we're laughing or sharing.
1:13:02 Speaker 00 When you were down the street, were the girls living there as well?
1:13:04 Speaker 02 Um, one of them was and one of them was a boarding school.
1:13:06 Speaker 00 Because you have the flat, did you have the flat above eleven Downing Street?
1:13:09 Speaker 02 We did, yes.
1:13:10 Speaker 00 Which is a bit more spacious.
1:13:12 Speaker 02 No, oh, sorry, no, we had the flat above number ten.
1:13:14 Speaker 00 Oh, which is not so spacious.
1:13:16 Speaker 02 Yeah, well, it was plenty spacious to us. It it was lovely.
1:13:20 Speaker 00 You liked it. You actually were quite happy there.
1:13:22 Speaker 02 Yes, it was, we made a home.
1:13:24 Speaker 00 Good.
1:13:24 Speaker 02 Yes. Um, but anyway, now we are the four of us together as a family and we will just, we won't be doing anything fancy, but we'll
1:13:34 Speaker 02 watch a film, we'll watch Friends, say.
1:13:36 Speaker 00 Oh, good.
1:13:37 Speaker 02 And have such, just I I it's almost like I have this out of body experience looking in. And I say, wow, this is my family. And this is us coming together and we have these connections and and that's sheer joy.
1:13:52 Speaker 00 I'm so happy you're watching Friends, because I feared for a moment you're going to be doing mathematical puzzles with one another, that's going to be your idea.
1:14:00 Speaker 02 Oh, no, Giles, no.
1:14:02 Speaker 00 You can be occasionally larky.
1:14:03 Speaker 02 We we we um watch way too much Friends.
1:14:06 Speaker 00 And do your, are you, are your daughters going to end up in India or do you think in the UK?
1:14:10 Speaker 02 Oh, no, no, I'll tell you this, Giles, they are, if you wake them up in the middle of the night and ask them where they're from, they'll tell you North Yorkshire. They are girls of Indian heritage.
1:14:25 Speaker 02 Who live in the UK, but their identity is firmly rooted in North Yorkshire.
1:14:33 Speaker 00 Because so much that's exciting is happening in India, from all I'm told, and I've been there.
1:14:38 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:14:39 Speaker 00 Whereas Britain, for many people, is sort of backward-looking, or the past is the excitement for Britain, and the future is excitement for India. But you don't feel that, clearly?
1:14:51 Speaker 02 No, absolutely not. And my children certainly don't feel that either. And Rishi and I are so excited to start a new chapter in the UK, which is home, which is our daughter's home, and which will be their future.
1:15:08 Speaker 00 What has life taught you, Akshata?
1:15:12 Speaker 02 You know that poem, Giles, "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost? And I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference. That has been the story of my life. And I'm proud of it, and I will not shy away from it. I think when I was younger, I tried a bit more to fit into the moulds. But it's, I think at forty-five, it's taught me that, um...
1:15:40 Speaker 00 So you feel you've taken the road less travelled by?
1:15:43 Speaker 02 Hmm.
1:15:44 Speaker 00 Because the poem is about coming to, in the wood.
1:15:47 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:15:48 Speaker 00 There's a choice.
1:15:48 Speaker 02 Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, yes.
1:15:51 Speaker 00 And you took the one that you feel not necessarily everyone else would have taken.
1:15:55 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:15:56 Speaker 00 And you feel that's rewarded you?
1:15:59 Speaker 02 That has certainly been the making of me.
1:16:02 Speaker 00 Well, I'm very glad the road you've travelled by today has included the Rosebud Studio.
1:16:06 Speaker 02 I am honoured to be here, thank you.
1:16:08 Speaker 00 Thank you, Akshata.
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