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00:00Baba Kalyani also joins us now, Chairperson of Bharat Foj.
00:03Mr. Kalyani, thank you so much for taking out the time and speaking to us at NDTV Profit.
00:07And what we're attempting to do in our coverage today is give our viewers a sense of who the man was.
00:14Of course, he's an icon, huge wealth creator, comes from one of the storied families of Indian business.
00:22But who was Ratan Tata and what is your perspective of him?
00:28You know, to me, Ratan Tata was a man when I look at it from today,
00:34was a man who really brought India together from a business perspective.
00:39And as the earlier speaker said, you know, he also showed Indian business ways to globalize their business,
00:48ways to go out of India and build businesses.
00:52He really built a strong and a positive brand for India globally.
00:57But as a man, he was a man with a lot of humility.
01:01I have met him personally many, many times.
01:04I've known him for many years.
01:06And whenever he was very open, whenever I had a problem and I wanted to see him, he would give time.
01:15He would listen to me patiently.
01:18He would advise me many times.
01:20He would tell me I was wrong in what I was thinking.
01:23But that was the kind of man he was.
01:26He was very candid, very straightforward, at the same time, very humane.
01:31And, you know, you saw what happened in 2011 as to how Ratan Tata, under his leadership,
01:41the Taj Group managed that whole episode.
01:44They put people first.
01:45They valued their people.
01:47They valued their employees.
01:49And it was an amazing show of how true Indian nature and Ratan Tata's nature was.
01:56Mr. Kalyani, good morning.
01:59Neeraj here.
02:00And just trying to understand, what would be your favorite memories?
02:03Because for us, the Taj moment or the great acquisitions that were done under his stewardship stand out.
02:10But you would have had personal moments.
02:11What have been the one or two most striking memories of yours?
02:15Well, I've had many personal moments right from 2000.
02:21I mean, right from, let's say, prior to 1991, when he took over Tata Sons as chairman.
02:29I've been going to the Bombay house for the last 50 years almost.
02:34But a couple of my experiences, personal experiences.
02:39We traveled to Washington together as a delegation of Dr. Manmohan Singh that time,
02:47the Indian delegation, to discuss the nuclear deal with the United States.
02:53And we flew from London to Washington in a British Airways flight.
02:57And one of the things I found about Ratan Tata, he was like an ordinary person.
03:04When he came to an airport, when he got his ticket, got his boarding pass, everything was like normal, like all of us do.
03:13And when we landed in Washington, the immigration officer pulled him aside and took him to a room for questioning.
03:21And I tried to argue with the immigration officer about why he shouldn't be doing that to a person of that stature.
03:28But that's how the U.S. immigration is.
03:31But that did not rattle Ratan Tata at all.
03:34He came out after an hour and he was as calm as ever.
03:37He was just saying that guy was doing his job and he was fine.
03:41And we just went to the hotel.
03:43So that was the person he was.
03:46He never got rattled.
03:48At the same time, he was pretty clear in terms of what he wanted to do, what he wanted to achieve.
03:55If he had a point of view, he would express his point of view very clearly, very candidly.
04:01And, you know, that was the amazing part.
04:06Mr. Kalyani, you talked about how you have spoken to him several times.
04:12You have, I'm sure, learned from him as well.
04:16What do you think is the biggest lesson for you as such, you know, a storied corporate leader that you have taken away from Ratan Tata?
04:25What is the one thing that you think you picked up from him and have implemented in your life?
04:31I mean, the one thing that I picked up from him was his, the way he treated people.
04:38He was a great leader, never showed arrogance, never showed, always was humane, always showed humility.
04:46Treated everybody equally.
04:48I think that is one of the greatest lessons that I have picked up from him.
04:54Okay. Mr. Das, thanks for waiting by patiently as well.
04:58Same question to you really, as you think about the moments that stand out in his story journey.
05:05What are the one or two that stand out, whether personal or otherwise?
05:08Yeah, well, one is I was on a board of one of the Tata companies.
05:13And he was an observer who came to attend the board meeting.
05:22And what I was struck was by his modesty, by not appearing to be self-important.
05:33And by listening to others.
05:37And also, his dog appeared in the middle of the meeting.
05:45He used to sometimes bring his dog to Bombay house.
05:50And the dog went and sat very quietly by his feet without disturbing anyone.
05:59So that showed his love for pets.
06:03And I think an equally important moment for me was when I finally, you know, there was an unhappy ending after he left.
06:19Which was when he turned the business over to Mystery.
06:26And that didn't work out.
06:28But what I'm happy about, what I really feel is an important lesson for India Inc.
06:35Is that they brought in, he brought in a professional.
06:39Finally, Chandrasekharan.
06:41There were a number of candidates.
06:43They selected Chandrasekharan because he was running TCS, the biggest and the crown jewel of the business.
06:52And the fact is that they have turned it over now to a professional.
06:57And I cannot imagine another Tata person ever running the Tata Enterprises.
07:04A $100 billion enterprise with 660,000 employees under a professional.
07:14That is the inspiring lesson for India Inc.
07:17Which has too many sons and incompetent nephews running the businesses.
07:23We don't want India Inc. to become like Indian politics run by dynasties.
07:30And this is an important lesson that anywhere, any Indian company turns over their business finally to be run not by one of the family members.
07:41But by a professional.
07:44And that to me is the most inspiring lesson to take from the life and times of Ratan Tata.
07:53Well put.
07:55To be fair, he did not have his own children who would have made claims.
08:02Perhaps that made it easier, but the vision definitely can be seen very clearly.
08:06Just want to understand about how his contribution to India, not just business.
08:11We look at business, but how contribution to nation building should be seen.
08:15And I want to come to Mr. Kalyani on this point.
08:18A sprawling conglomerate which has moved with the times, but at the heart of it seem to be businesses which work for the country.
08:29Do you think that that's a business model that can work even today?
08:33You know, I mean, as far as Ratan Tata is concerned, you know, he always put India first.
08:40And therefore, his sprawling businesses for him were kind of secondary.
08:46It was always India first.
08:49And you must remember that many of the businesses had had a lot of headwinds during his tenure.
08:57Some of it was what Gurucharan talked about and some others.
09:01But he held on to that because he believed that that is good for India, that is good for the country.
09:06And that was his personal belief.
09:09I've been many times with him.
09:11We meet our Honorable Prime Minister in a meeting.
09:15And I mean, he never talked about his own businesses.
09:19I've never seen him ever discuss what any of the Tata Group companies wanted.
09:25He always talked about what we need to do in the country.
09:29And that was his greatest thought process, I would say.
09:33Something that I really admire.
09:37Yeah, most certainly.
09:39Most certainly, Mr. Kalyani.
09:40The other one question.
09:42I mean, you've spoken about the personal memory or the takeaway on a life lesson in terms of his behavior.
09:48I was just trying to understand, Mr. Kalyani, you are a very successful corporate leader yourself.
09:53In terms of somebody who took bets and stuck with them, even if not necessarily paying off in the immediate aftermath of the deal being done.
10:04I mean, JLR was a case in point.
10:06Are there lessons to be learned there too, sir?
10:09Yeah, you know, he taught many of us.
10:12I mean, his famous thing was, there is no business where you can do it without taking risks.
10:21Risks are part of the business.
10:23And that was always his message to me whenever I met him.
10:28Whenever I went to discuss with him, I want to do something new.
10:31What do you think, Ratan?
10:33Is that a good idea?
10:35You know, he would always tell me that if you have an idea, if you have a passion, you need to take risks and make it happen.
10:44And that was his philosophy.
10:46And if you look at all the new businesses that he built during his tenure, I mean, many of them had risks, but they became quite successful.
10:56You know, that's interesting where the overarching point was that, does this work well for what the country needs rather than just the group and profitability?
11:10Having said that, do you think that the big legacy is also his interest in startups and new businesses?
11:19What has been the impression you've had from the philanthropic side of Mr. Ratan Tata's worldview?
11:26You know, his philanthropic side was one that he didn't talk about too much, neither did the Tata group talk about too much.
11:35But we all know, I mean, he's one of the biggest philanthropists, or was one of the biggest philanthropists of India.
11:43The kind of things they have done for the society, whether it's in Jamshedpur, whether it's in Calcutta, building a hospital, for example.
11:51I mean, a place where they were thrown out of Singur for the Tata Nano plant, or whether it's doing things for sports, for children.
12:03The amazing work that the Tata group under Ratan Tata did in terms of philanthropy.