Girish Karnad didn’t need the shares. Nandan Nilekani wouldn’t cease asking. “This Nandan is irritating me,” Karnad instructed his spouse, as recounted in I Am on the Hit Listing: Homicide and Delusion-making in South India, journalist Rollo Romig’s vivid exploration of Bangalore’s transformation.
Her light nudge—“He has such good mother and father… why don’t you purchase just a few?”—sealed the deal. Karnad purchased a small slice of Infosys, not out of foresight, however out of household loyalty.
Karnad, one in all India’s most revered playwrights, wasn’t drawn to the markets. “I wasn’t fascinated by funding,” he instructed Romig. However that modest choice within the early Nineties, made simply to finish a cousin’s persistence, ended up financing his home.
“It pulled me up from being a lower-middle-class household man to a snug financial body,” he mirrored. “I want I’d invested extra.”
Infosys, co-founded by Nilekani, listed in 1993 at ₹95 a share. It shortly grew to become one in all India’s most outstanding engines of wealth.
For individuals who held on, the returns have been staggering. Due to 9 bonus points and a inventory cut up, 100 shares bought at IPO would have become 102,400 by 2025. On the present value of ₹1,580, that funding would now be price ₹16.18 crore—excluding dividends.
Karnad didn’t hit that jackpot, however his story captures one thing extra resonant: the unbelievable and uneven nature of India’s tech growth. Romig makes use of the anecdote to show deeper financial rifts in Bangalore.
“A big part of the native inhabitants feels utterly misplaced,” Karnad mentioned. “Within the good outdated days, there was employment for native folks… They might see the place the cash got here from.” The IT wave, in contrast, was “a layer of cash which is completely incomprehensible.”
