'Upset' Sudha Murty once told Narayana Murthy about menopause: ‘Hormones can…’

Sudha Murty said that she accepted menopause and the changes that came with it.

Sudha Murty talked about menopause and emotional and physical changes she went through in a chat with SheThePeople founder Shaili Chopra recently. The 73-year-old, said, “My father was a gynaecologist. From the beginning, when I was going through puberty, he said, ‘Now your hormones are high, so your skin glows. You look at the mirror many times. A day will come when the hormones will be withdrawn and you will go through menopause. But you should not think of it as a disease.'”

Infosys Foundation Chairperson Sudha Murty.(PTI)

“My dad was a good friend of mine. He talked about menstruation, that is there's nothing wrong with it. It is not a curse or impurity. It has to be part of your hormone balancing. He made it a point that all three daughters accept these things as normal,” she continued.

When asked if she was scared, despite the awareness, Sudha Murty said that she accepted menopause and the changes that came with it.

"I knew that when my hormones started retreating, I should accept that my skin would wrinkle, that I'm going to put a little more weight, sometimes I may feel down, sometimes I may feel normal, sometimes I may feel up,” she said, adding that through mood swings, “I always remembered that it was happening because of hormones, and remembered that I should keep doing what interests me like working, reading, exercising, or watching a movie.”

Talking about emotional changes during menopause, Sudha Murty said, “One day both my children were out and I suddenly remembered them and started crying. I wondered, 'I did not cry when they left to study in the US, why am I crying now?' Then I sat for two minutes to debrief and I remembered, 'Oh this is because of my hormones!'”

She also said that she told her her husband, Infosys founder Narayana Murthy, "In case I'm upset for something without reason, think of it as a hormone retreat, laugh over it and don't take it so seriously.”