REMEMBERING RATAN TATA : A RICH LEGACY OF LEADERSHIP AND ALL ENCOMPASSING PASSION

“I would like to be remembered as someone who made a difference; nothing more, nothing less,” Ratan Tata

Many a time we come across broad-hearted people extending help in one form or the other without expecting anything back as reward or compensation. Ratan Tata is one such great person who has been considered an embodiment of compassion, passion and a zeal of enterprise. As rightly pointed out by Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, Ratan Ji, apart from his (Tata’s) invaluable contribution as an industrialist, has left behind a legacy of benevolence and compassion, underlined by his immense love for his country.

His dedication to philanthropy was displayed during many critical times, viz., (1) all the affected employees and guests, post-2008 Mumbai attacks, were provided with medical care and financial compensation (2) when the dreaded COVID affected many, Tata Steel announced that it would continue paying salaries and medical benefits to the families of Indian employees who died from the virus, until the deceased worker would have turned 60 (3) compassionate response to crises like providing aid during natural disasters and supporting communities in need. These kind actions by Ratan Ji further solidified his reputation as an industrialist who placed people’s wellbeing at the core of his business.

Ratan Tata’s legacy as a “people’s industrialist” is cemented by his deep sense of responsibility toward improving the lives of ordinary people. For Ratan Tata, kindness should be a transformative one and not restricted to lip service alone.

Vaali, one of the most accomplished Lyricist who has penned variety of memorable songs to Tamil audience was walking along the Chowpatty beach side. That locality was experiencing heavy downpour at that time and Vaali got a taste of Mumbai's rain-drench.. Suddenly, a car came nearer to him and stopped and the windshield got opened. " Hi, young boy, Where do you want to go? Please come inside," a gentle voice was heard from inside the car. That gentleman himself was driving the car. Vaali told the gentleman that the seat of the car also would get drenched and he would therefore proceed to VT on his own . However, on more persistance, Vaali entered into the car and while he was alighting asked the name of the gentleman to which he said," People use to call me as JRD Tata".

Later, in an interview to a channel, Vaali narrated this episode and was praising JRD Tata's compassion even on an outsider like him. We need to look deeper into the rich legacy of history and legacy of TATA family , a name synonymous with Trust, Leadership and commitment of our country's progress.

Ironically, the same Vaali has penned a Tamil lyric chiding some people who consider themselves as big in the society but having no compassion in their hearts. The very first line of the song starts like this:

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The finishing para reads as follows:

???????? ???? ???????? ?????

??????? ???????? ?????????? ?????

???????? ???????? ????? ?????,

viz.,

everybody should have his own unique path and committed journey and work hard with our blessed hands.

It only takes seconds to offer assistance to the needy. But even a small help at a critical hour would be remembered forever. Life is not finding about ourselves. its about creating ourselves.

For Ratan Tata Ji, kindness and generosity were the true marks of character and everything else was secondary to him. In short, he lived to be the better version of himself.

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