Chitra, the runaway child in this story is not Sudha Murthy - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
September 15, 2022
A post is being shared on social media, which is said to be the story of a runaway girl named Chitra who receives help from a woman named Usha. The post claims that the girl Chitra in this story is Sudha Murthy. Let’s fact-check the claim in this article.
Claim: Chitra, the runaway girl who gets rescued by a woman named Usha in the story is Infosys chairperson Sudha Murthy.
Fact: This story is an excerpt from the non-fiction book written by Sudha Murthy titled ‘The day I stopped drinking milk.’ In this book, Sudha Murthy writes stories of people that she met and has known over the years, and are said to be recollections of her experiences as a teacher, writer and a social worker. In the first chapter titled ‘Bombay to Bangalore’, she writes about a girl named Chitra, whom she rescued during her journey in a train. Chitra is not Sudha Murthy as the post claims. Hence the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
To know the veracity of the story, we searched the internet with relevant keywords and found a blogpost about this story. The post contained a story of a girl named Chitra whom Sudha Murthy rescues in Udyan Express on her way to Bangalore. The post mentions that this story is from a book titled ‘The day I stopped drinking milk.’
We went through a PDF copy of this book which is available on the internet and came to know that this is a non-fiction book written by Sudha Murthy based on her life experiences.
The first chapter titled ‘Bombay to Bangalore’ is a story of a runaway child named Chitra. Sudha Murthy purchases a ticket for the girl when a Ticket Collector catches her travelling without a ticket.
She later joins Chitra in a shelter home in Bangalore. Chitra grows up to become a Computer Science Engineer and moves to the US.  Years later when Sudha Murthy attends a meeting in San Fransico to deliver a lecture, she meets Chitra.
The story in the viral post is also similar to this one, and it even mentions that the story is from her book “The Day I Stopped Drinking Milk” except that it claims the child Chitra is Sudha Murthy. It is clearly an altered version of the story ‘Bombay to Bangalore’ written by Sudha Murthy.
To sum up, Chitra, the runaway child in this story is not Infosys chairperson Sudha Murthy.