Tata book launch takes on current clime, clean business houses; and insider anecdotes
R Gopalakrishnan, Girish Kuber, Rajrishi Singhal and Vivek Kaul at the book launch at Kitab Khana on Monday. Pic/ASHISH RAJE
Kitab Khana at Fort played host to the launch of a book, ‘The Tatas: How a family built a business and a nation’ published by HarperCollins India, on Monday evening. The venue was apt, the proverbial stone’s throw away from Tata headquarters, Bombay House. The writer, Girish Kuber, was in conversation with senior journalists Rajrishi Singhal and Vivek Kaul. The man who gave an inside view of the Tatas at the event though was R Gopalakrishnan former director, Tata Sons who also formally released the book.
A connect
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"This is the first time I read a book back to front because I felt a personal connect with the latter chapters. It was a bit like the Hindi movies that show an old couple. Then, there is a flashback of them running around trees, showcasing how they got together," Gopalkrishnan said to laughs.
He added, "It is interesting that a book on the Tatas should come out now at a time when business houses are being assailed. Some of these are of course for good reason. There are crooks in business like there are in other fields and it is important not to be apologetic about this fact. This will also hopefully start a trend when books on business institutions which have stood the test of time are published."
Gopalakrishnan compared the Tatas, the behemoth business house, to the Laal Killa (Red Fort) and other brick ’n’ mortar edifices that have longevity as their cornerstone. He stressed though that this is not about eulogies. "I will say that the house of Tatas has flaws. This is because it comprises human beings who come with flaws. They do not hide their flaws though. They admit that they have made mistakes."
Storyteller
Kuber said in response to Rajrishi’s question about researching for a book that goes back nearly 200 years, "There is a copious amount of literature in the Tata archives in Pune, there is some at the Asiatic Society..." Kaul said the book was "reader friendly" to which Kuber said he had deliberately avoided the "number crunching that peppers business books and at times makes them dry, and realised that there are real stories to be told. For instance, not many know that strawberries in Mahableshwar were brought in by the Tatas."
The discussion meandered to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in today’s times given the Tata’s tradition of philanthropy. Kuber said even something like, "the eight-hour shift concept was the Tatas’."
Of it being a ‘clean’ business house, Gopalakrishnan said, "I entered Tata when I was 52. At that age, one is already cynical having seen so much. Initially, I used to look at the goings on in Tata with great curiousity mixed with suspicion. It was the typical daal-mein-kuch-kaala-hai (there is something fishy) mindset. Yet, there I discovered a form of genuineness that even my cynical self had to accept. Remember that this is a company that has been drenching the public in the molasses of integrity for 150 years."
Interactive session
As the discussion moved towards the interactive session with the audience, Kuber summed up the Tata philosophy in the words of the Marathi writer Pu La Deshpande, who said, "India’s culture can be described in two words, Khaali (below) Bata, varti (above) Tata."
The audience, many of them from the Tata group itself interjected at times, making their own observations. One gent said, "managers who move from Tatas to other business houses are not very successful. They cannot grow the other companies."
An informed young man, law student Saurav Ambavane asked why the book did not mention the late Nani Palkhivala’s contribution to the group.
He was told, "Palkhivala was the compass for the company. A ship needs a compass to navigate choppy waters. Yet, not many remember the compass, they only remember the captain."
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