Ms Murthy, a 1974 batch IAS officer of the Andhra Pradesh cadre, recalls how her father was keen on seeing her eldest sister, a brilliant academic, become an IAS officer. But her sister had no such ambition. When Ms Murthy's father died, she was still in her impressionable teenage years, and she vowed that she would fulfill her father's dream.

Today, Ms Murthy does not regret her choice of career, and puts heart and soul into her work. Along with the ITDC posting, she also holds the post of joint secretary in the ministry of tourism. "Right now, the biggest challenge is to see the disinvestment plans of the government through," she says.

Ms Murthy feels she has joined ITDC at a crucial juncture, with the global advisors appointed by the government looking closely at ITDC's books. And ITDC is saddled with a number of problems. It has more than 7,900 non-executive employees all over the country, who are controlled by nine unions. These employees have been waging a war for better wages and are wary of the whole disinvestment exercise.

"Being CMD of ITDC itself is more than a full-time job because of all the problems it is facing. But my job is all the more challenging as I bear dual charge," she says. Ms Murthy finds herself working from 8 am to 9 pm and still left with reams of papers to clear. "24 hours are not enough to handle my kind of job," she says.

The casualty of her successful professional career has been her domestic life, Ms Murthy says. Her twin daughters were brought up by a battery of servants because their mother's busy schedule left her with little time for them. "The one thing I really regret is not having spent time with my daughters, as much as other mothers do. In fact, I remember that I was not at home when my daughters took their first steps. The servant informed me that they had begun walking," she says.

But she quickly asserts that it's not as if she had absolutely no time for her daughters. "I made sure that I got to know them well and spent some quality time with them every day," she says.

To make sure that while she was with her children, office work did not nag at the back of her mind, Ms Murthy says she learnt the fine art of switching off completely when she reached home. "You can't be talking to your daughter or watching TV, and also worrying about office work," she explains. But just how does she do that? Meditation, perhaps? Ms Murthy says that she has just trained her mind to function that way.

And it is this mastery over her mind that helps her at work too. She never lets herself gets too angry, and if she does, she does not allow herself to show the anger. "I don't allow myself to lose my cool and don't allow my anger to consume me either," she says, attributing this facet of her personality to being an Indian woman, who has many roles to play.

"I don't need any management mantra either," she says. "You need to learn man-management, however. Your image as a boss is also important as you have to set the example."

No wonder Ms Murthy has managed to straddle this male bastion with quiet efficiency.