Dealing with your first slowdown ; India Inc. faces an internal acid test, as bosses and managers try to help GenX graduate from fairy tales to real life.

Infosys chief mentor N. R. Narayana Murthy had not done a townhall ever since he stepped down from the executive post in August2006, but the 62-year-old industry veteran, who founded Infosys wayback in the early '80s along with half a dozen other ITprofessionals made an exception in January this year. He walked intothe Infosys auditorium at Bangalore where over 5,000 Infoscions werewaiting patiently to hear him for the first time in many years someof them may be for the first time (the average age at Infosys isjust 26 years).

The IT industry was in the grip of the global slowdown and theSatyam fraud had damaged India's 'software' reputation abroad. Afteran opening speech …