Samba Murthy – 2 years
It has been 2 years to the day, since our father left us. We believe he left to don a new avatara with the gods. After all, he had literally been an “avatara purusha” in his life here.
He used to be a spirited story teller. He used to regale everybody with instances from his rich experiences over the years. At the bookshop he used to run, kids and elders alike, used to stand for hours together and listen to him in rapt attention.
I’ll try to record some anecdotes, experiences, stories we’ve heard from him, learnt from him or observed about him.
The Librarian
Becoming a librarian wasn’t his first choice of profession. He was nudged into becoming one after he lost a few successive opportunities in statistics related academics due to politics, favouritism, etc. But, he took to the library profession as a duck would into water and became a passionate librarian until his final breath.
He verily believed a librarian’s true job was not just maintaining a catalog of books, but act as a guide and advisor to people finding information and strive to help them find it whatever the circumstances. Whether it was in an academic library, or his bookshop or his business circles. Whether it were for a nursery kid, or for a PG Researcher or for government officials seeking information from across the world to solve local problems; he had built a vast network of sources – from publishers, libraries, fellow professionals, etc whom he tapped occasionally to obtain books, journals, or just some plain information.
His penchant to poke people into sharing their problems, so that he could help them with pointers ended up kickstarting my career in internet technologies.
BSNL had recently launched a nationwide project to build internet backbone in various cities. The regional head of that effort – my father didn’t know that – was in our bookstore browsing various Unix related books. My father asked him what was he specifically looking for, he replied he wanted some Solaris related books as they wanted to build a web server at their center to cater to the city. My father who by then knew quite a bit about Linux and the budding ecosystem around Linux, pulled me into the discussion and asked if I could help them. I indeed had a solution and that helped launch my career.
If you happen to know any such anecdotes related to Shri N Samba Murthy, please do drop in a mail at nsm@inf.in
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Sujit Padival
Jul 7, 2023, 11:47 amI have had the honour and privilege of knowing Sri Sambamurthy for over 2 decades, as I am still a tenant in his premises. He was a man of great principles and integrity. He was also a father figure to me. God bless his soul 🙏
H S Lakshminath
Jul 7, 2023, 8:35 amShri. Sambamurthy was a great person. I knew him from 3 decades. Always helpful and ever active person. He had a great love towards Indian culture,music,sanskrit,yoga etc. The list is endless.. I am highly grateful to Shri Sambamurthy for giving me an opportunity to teach yoga and thereby share the very little knowledge I have on yoga with my students.
By God’s grace. Even today we are having our yoga classes at his place. I will try my best to continue yoga as long as possible as a respect to sir. My thanks to Sri. Sambamurthy and all the members of his family.How I wish he would be there on 11th November 2023. when SYK will be completing 10 years.
I pray God to keep him happy wherever he is now and to bless all the members of his family with excellent health long life and prosperity.
Jai Shri Ram
Bhargava Ambaprasad
Jul 7, 2023, 2:15 pmSri Samba Murthy ji was one of my Father’s friend as well as a close relative. He was very supportive during the time we brothers were doing ”Quality”‘ Note Book Manufacturing. He encouraged us and closely monitored our progress in Music Field too. We remember those days of discussions on varied subjects for a good length of time. Sri Nanjunda Sastrygalu, father of Sri Samba Murthy ji was in our Grand Father’s inner circle. I need to appreciate Sri Samba Murthy’s Children for having started this initiative.
Kiran Maribashetti
Jul 7, 2023, 7:57 amShri Samba Murthy Uncle was a versatile genius. He lived his passion. He was a repertoire of Knowledge. He was full of anecdotes local to national. I still remember, Shashi, Ravi, Jayanth Munipalli and Self had formed a team to conduct quizzes for various events in Mysore. Our Adda was the Top floor of Aparna Book House which had a Computer centre with probably the fastest internet connection Mysore could think of during those days (2002/03). We used to glean the internet in an effort to search for veritable trivia which would aid us in our Quiz endeavors. There were many a times when we would hit a dead end and it was during those moments that I would walk down two flights of stairs sit with uncle, start a conversation, listen to him and he would be teeming with information with aunty pitching in. It would be my refreshing Coffee break and back into our seat, our next set of Quiz questions were ready. There have been times when Shashi and Ravi would be out on errands and I would sit for hours having a conversation with Uncle and aunty, each one of them enriching me in GBs. The best part was uncle’s voice, it had a tone that never failed to attract one’s attention and then you would be charmed by what happened next.