I came from a middle-class family. My father was a professor in a medical college, and my mother was a schoolt... — Sudha Murty

I came from a middle-class family. My father was a professor in a medical college, and my mother was a schoolteacher. We led a good life but we did not have much money.

Author: Sudha Murty

Insight: There's something clarifying about this kind of background—having enough stability to breathe, but not enough money to assume the world owes you comfort. When your parents are educated but modest earners, you see up close that intelligence and meaning don't arrive gift-wrapped with wealth. You learn that a good life and an expensive life are actually different things. This matters now because we live in a culture obsessed with both ends of the spectrum: the hustle-until-you're-rich narrative, or the nostalgic fantasy of simpler times. But middle-class stability—the kind Murty describes—teaches something subtler. It shows that you can have security without entitlement, knowledge without arrogance, aspiration without desperation. Your parents model that dignity doesn't require excess. What's often overlooked is how this shapes your relationship with money and success later. You're not running from poverty or protecting inherited wealth. You're just solving problems and building things because that's what you watched intelligent people do. The freedom in that is real, even if the bank account wasn't spectacular. You know early that meaning comes from what you do, not from what you have waiting for you.