Tata was a ‘Man in Full’. He was known to whistle along with his favourite Lee Oskar playlist, face to the sun on a lounger at a Kovalam resort. He would hum – and knew the words of – Nat King Cole’s dreamy, ‘Darling, je vous aime beaucoup/ Je ne sais pas what to do?’ Naidu remembers upon agreeing to be in the frame of a selfie, Tata asking his young buddy, ‘Can I stick my tongue out?’ And he actually did.
Tata’s favourite New York restaurant was Cipriani, with ‘its ’80s Hollywood vibe hanging heavy in a room full of old money and legacy’. His shopping stops in NYC were Macy’s for household linen and duffel bags; Brooks Brothers for his trademark shirts without a pocket; a particular pet shop for his beloved Tango and the now-late Tito’s favourite baseball-shaped toys; Barnes & Noble where he once recommended Garth Stein’s ‘The Art of Racing in the Rain’.
Tata also had a favourite tech store in the Big Apple he would visit for an update on the latest hardware and to buy mundane stuff like a phone cover or charging cable, ‘moving his head from side to side and up and down’ as he sets up ‘face unlock’ on his phone.
More corporate mentors should borrow RNT’s template as he played Miyagi to his ‘Karate Kid’. Naidu had come to Tata’s notice in 2015 when, as a compassionate automobile design student in Pune, he had created a reflective collar to save strays from being run over. Tata invested in it – and asked him to help set up his dream state-of-the-art Small Animal Hospital in Mahalaxmi, Mumbai, that was inaugurated last year.
In those seismic Cyrus Mistry years, RNT was deeply hurt at being misunderstood for only carrying on the mentorship he had received from his revered JRD. But all we heard the circumspect Tata say was: ‘We don’t sell broken businesses. We mend them.’P.S. As a dissenting end note, I myself was subjected to a stony look-through at a board event of the India Aids Initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. ‘Apro Ratan’ was clearly not amused by my irreverent column that week visualising the funereal atmosphere in Mumbai’s Dadar Parsi Colony over the possibility of the group not being headed by a Tata.
