1. JRD Tata Personal Life
JRD Tata was the great leader and a chairman of TATA Sons in its history. He joined TATA
Sons at the age of 21 years only and in 1938, at the age of 34 years, he became the chairman
of TATA Sons and transformed it into 95 enterprises conglomerate in just 50 years from 14
enterprises initially.
He was born in Paris, Europe and he was the pioneer of Indian aviation sector.
JRD was a simple living person.
He loved to collect books and he was an avid reader.
J.R.D. preferred to spend a good deal of his time in what appeared to be his study. There
was a whole shelf of books on aviation, another on military ventures and warfare, and one on
sports cars and motor racing. He liked to read crime fiction, lighter books like David Niven's
Bring on the Horses, and books by Louis L'Amour.
He used to live in a small room.
According to J.R.D., his mother was a very resourceful, intelligent and adaptable lady who
- with five children - single-handedly packed up her household items in France and came to
India to be with her husband, who was in the House of Tatas. As she went back to her home
country every year or two, J.R.D.'s education was regularly disrupted.
After school, he was drafted for a year into the French army and assigned to a regiment in
France called Le Saphis. At the end of his time there, he expected to go on to Cambridge
where a place was reserved for him. But his father summoned him back to India to join the
Tatas.
Though he missed his college education, he undertook his own education after office
hours, studying books on various aspects of business. When he was in his early twenties,
while recovering from typhoid, he would come to his room at the Raj, throw himself in bed
and study. When his sister Rodabeh pleaded, 'Why don't you rest Jeh, you are tired and
unwell,' J.R.D. replied, 'I want to be worthy of Tatas.'