‘We faced a…’: Ratan Tata on his parents' divorce, grandmother's support and breakup

The nation is mourning the loss of Ratan Tata, an industrialist and philanthropist, who passed away a few days back in Mumbai after a brief illness. He was 86. Tata, the chairman emeritus of Tata Sons, was known for his remarkable business acumen and kind heart.

After acquiring a B.S. in architecture from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, in 1962, Tata joined the family business. Ten years later, he was appointed chairman of Tata Industries, and in 1991, he succeeded his uncle, JRD Tata, who had led the Tata Group for more than fifty years, as chairman.

Ratan Tata talked extensively about his early years, his parent's divorce, and his near-marriage experience in a 2020 interview with Humans of Bombay.

“I had a happy childhood, but as my brother and I got older, we faced a fair bit of ragging and personal discomfort because of our parent’s divorce, which in those days wasn’t as common as it is today," Ratan Tata had said.

“But my grandmother brought us up in every way. Soon after when my mother remarried, the boys at school started saying all kinds of things about us -- constantly and aggressively. But our grandmother taught us to retain dignity at all costs, a value that’s stayed with me until today.”

Additionally, Ratan Tata told Humans of Bombay that he fell in love and nearly got married in an architecture firm in Los Angeles after receiving his degree in architecture.

“After college, I landed a job at an architecture firm in LA, where I worked for two years. It was a great time -- the weather was beautiful, I had my own car and I loved my job. It was in LA that I fell in love and almost got married. But at the same time I had made the decision to move back at least temporarily since I had been away from my grandmother who wasn’t keeping too well for almost 7 years,” he told Humans of Bombay.

"So I came back to visit her and thought that the person I wanted to marry would come to India with me, but because of the 1962 Indo-China war her parent’s weren’t okay with her making the move anymore, and the relationship fell apart,” he added.