Beyond the last blue mountain , livre ebook

R.M. Lala

BEYOND THE LAST BLUE MOUNTAIN
A Life of J.R.D. Tata
Contents
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
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
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
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
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 (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 old colonial order shatter into a hundred independent nations. Till the middle of the century, as late as 1950, there were only four independent countries in the whole of Africa: Ethiopia, Egypt, Libya and South Africa. By the late sixties there were forty-nine.
J.R.D. Tata, who has lived through the entire span of upheaval and scientific progress, says he has had no part in any of the events. All he can claim, he says, is some influence on the development of the House of Tatas-which broadly synchronizes with the growth of India as an industrial power-and, in a small way on the history of civil aviation in India .
In 1932 he pioneered civil aviation in India. In 1948 he gave India her wings abroad. Thirty years later, when he ceased to be the Chairman of Air-India, Air Marshal Noor Khan of Pakistan hailed him as, an epic figure . J.R.D. had given India an airline Indians could be proud of.
Had he not been involved in anything other