Table Of ContentR.M. Lala
BEYOND THE LAST BLUE MOUNTAIN
A Life of J.R.D. Tata
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Contents
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About the Author
By the Same Author
Dedication
A Note on the Illustrations
Preface to the Revised and Updated Edition
Preface to the First Edition
Part I: Years of Preparation
Chapter I: The Heritage
Chapter II: Childhood 1904-1915
Chapter III: Taj Mahal and Cherry Blossoms
Chapter IV: Sooni
Chapter V: British School and the French Army
Chapter VI: R.D.
Chapter VII: Train to Jamshedpur
Chapter VIII: Years of Endurance
Chapter IX: Meeting Thelly
Chapter X: Sir Dorab And Sir Nowroji
Part II: Eyes on the Stars
Chapter I: When The Skies Were Less Crowded
Chapter II: Getting Airborne
Chapter III: Song Of The Clouds
Chapter IV: Tata Air Lines 1933-1946
Chapter V: The Magic Carpet
Chapter VI: Setting Standards
Chapter VII: Night Air Mail
Chapter VIII: Nationalization Of Airlines
Chapter IX: To Be Or Not To Be
Chapter X: Triumph And Tragedy Air-India 1948-1964
Chapter XI: President Of IATA
Chapter XII: The Jet Age
Chapter XIII: The Emperors Arrive
Chapter XIV: Dismissed
Part III: Captain Of Industry
Chapter I: Chairman
Chapter II: The Making Of A Family
Chapter III: The War And The British
Chapter IV: The Bombay Plan
Chapter V: Mission To The West
Chapter VI: The Two Top Captains
Chapter VII: Cultivating Trust
Chapter VIII: The Birth Of A Giant
Chapter IX: An Empire Expands
Chapter X: The Decade Of The 1950s
Chapter XI: From Empire To Commonwealth
Chapter XII: The Indira Gandhi Era
Chapter XIII: A Dream Fades And Reappears
Part IV: The Patriarch
Chapter I: The Professional
Chapter II: The Philanthropist
Chapter III: The Citizen
Chapter IV: Celebrities
Chapter V: A Friendship
Chapter VI: The Family
Chapter VII: Vignettes
Chapter VIII: Eventide
Epilogue
Appendix A: J.R.D. Tata’s Journey Logbook
Appendix B: On Nationalization Of Airlines
Appendix C: Dismissed From Air-India
Appendix D: Jamsetji Tata
Notes
Acknowledgements
Follow Penguin
Copyright
About the Author
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Editor, publisher and author, Russi M. Lala began his career as a journalist in
1948, at the age of nineteen. Shortly after this, he became an executive in a book
publishing house. In 1959, he became the manager of the first Indian book
publishing house in London. In 1964, he founded (with Rajmohan Gandhi) the
newsweekly, Himmat, which he edited for a decade.
He published his first book, The Creation of Wealth: A Tata Story to critical and
commercial acclaim in 1981. This was followed by Encounters with the Eminent
(1981), The Heartbeat of a Trust (1984) and In Search of Leadership (1986). He
has also edited, with S.A. Sabavala, a book of J.R.D. Tata’s speeches, Keynote
(1986).
By the Same Author
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The Creation of Wealth: A Tata Story (1981)
Encounters with the Eminent (1981)
The Heartbeat of a Trust (1984)
In Search of Leadership (1986)
Keynote (edited with S.A. Sabavala, 1986)
To
Four People Ever Precious
my father, my mother,
my mother-in-law and
my wife, Freny
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We are the Pilgrims, master; we should go
Always a little further: it may be
Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow
Across that angry or that glimmering sea . . . .
We travel not for trafficking alone;
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned;
For lust of knowing what should not be known,
We take the Golden Road to Samarkand.
—James Elroy Flecker
A Note on the Illustrations
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The illustrations on the interleaving pages preceding Parts I and II are by the
British artist Henry Morshead. Illustration 1 shows the twin heritage of J.R.D.
Tata: The stairway at Persepolis representing his father’s heritage from ancient
Persia and the Eiffel Tower, the French heritage from his mother’s side.
Illustration 2 is a sketch of the Boeing 707 and the Puss Moth drawn to scale.
Illustration 3 shows the Tata crest as designed by the founder, Jamsetji Tata. The
words Humata, Hukhta and Hvarshta in the ancient Avesta language mean
‘Good Thoughts’, ‘Good Words’, and ‘Good Deeds’. J.R.D. Tata later
redesigned the wings. Illustration 4 is an artist’s impression of the young J.R.D.
Tata.
Preface to the Revised and Updated Edition
After the release of the first edition of this book in January 1992, two events of
note took place. The first was the award of the Bharat Ratna to J.R.D. Tata on
Republic Day 1992, and the second was the bestowing of the United Nations
Population Award, 1992, on him for his pioneering and sustained efforts for
family planning in India. The Bharat Ratna was mentioned in the second edition,
but I felt a completely revised preface was necessary for the paperback edition,
the first to be printed after his death on 29 November 1993.
His passing away received press coverage worthy of a prime minister. Weeks
after his death, articles, letters, advertisements and hoardings continued to
appear; the message of his former company, Air India, would have made him
rejoice:
He touched the sky and it smiled.
He stretched out his arms
and they encircled the globe.
His vision made giants out of
men and organisations.
A couple of years before he passed away he told me more than once that he
wanted to die abroad. ‘All chairmen of Tata Sons have died abroad,’ he would
say. I did question J.R.D., ‘Even if they happened to die abroad, why do you
want to do so?’ ‘If I die abroad,’ he said gently, ‘I will be no bother to people
here.’
The well-known journalist, M.V. Kamath, wrote after J.R.D.’s death, ‘In his
life what J.R.D. did was what any pilgrim might have wished to do: go always a
little further beyond the last blue mountain, wishing to know what lay there.’
One of J.R.D.’s traits was that he questioned every major concept, not because
he was averse to it but because his logical mind wanted a clarification. In that
process he often clarified the other person’s thinking.
During our last conversation shortly before he left for Europe on his last visit
he questioned me at length about the concepts we were discussing; that meeting
he questioned me at length about the concepts we were discussing; that meeting
(described at some length in the Epilogue) revealed that J.R.D. wished to know
what lay beyond the last blue mountain.
One of the major topics of that dialogue was the hymn, “Abide With Me”, the
last words of which are:
Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies:
Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me!
*
When J.R.D. was living I concluded this biography with the words: And as the
evening mellows and the shadows lengthen, somewhere above in the sky, in an
invisible Puss Moth, is a voyager still pressing ahead to cross beyond the last
blue mountain where a glorious sunset awaits him.
I hope I was mistaken and that beyond that last blue mountain heaven’s radiant
morning embraced him.
R.M. Lala
Bombay
16 December 1993
Preface to the First Edition
The year is 1930. A tiny Puss Moth with a single engine is droning over the arid
expanse of Iraq at about ninety miles per hour. The pilot is a young man of
twenty-six, who is flying without a radio, without landing aids, without
instruments except an altimeter and a speedometer. In the distance rise the large
mountains and the land beyond the Euphrates and the Tigris. He presses forward
in that little plane to reach “beyond that last blue mountain”.
The year is 1990. The same man at eighty-six is seated comfortably in his
well-appointed office with a physical map of the world behind him, also
portraying the elevation of the mountains of Iraq he once flew over. This time he
is talking of the twenty-first century. ‘You know I would like to live to see the
21st century because by that time you will be able to travel from London to New
York within 1% hours. Planes will climb into space, fly at three times the speed
of sound without friction before re-entering the atmosphere and landing in New
York.’ Forever young, this man approaching ninety still seems eager to go
beyond the distant blue mountain.
J.R.D. Tata was born when the twentieth century opened its eyes. The year
was 1904, when the Russo-Japanese war broke out, when work on the Panama
Canal began and when Sir Francis Younghusband led the expedition that opened
up Tibet to the world. It was a time when Edward VII reigned as the King-
Emperor of India, when Mahatma Gandhi was trying his early experiments with
truth in South Africa and a rather well-featured young man called Jawaharlal
Nehru was being groomed in Allahabad to enter Harrow.
The world was still young. There were many mountains to climb and rivers to
cross. Amundsen had yet to reach the South Pole and the peak of Mount Everest
had to wait half-a-century before its snow experienced the first footprint of man.
The century to unfold was to result in amazing-discoveries and inventions. The
aeroplane, radio and television were to make the earth a much smaller planet to
live in. It was a century that was to experience two world wars and see the rise
and decline of Fascism and Communism. It was a century that would witness the
