Shantanu Naidu - I Came Upon a Lighthouse: A Short Memoir of Life with Ratan Tata

Dedicated to my friend and saviour,

my dog Winter

ASHARED CONCERN FOR the welfare of the homeless, hungry, ill-treated and abandoned dogs and cats brought Shantanu and me together. He and his young friends had been bootstrapping a small start-up in Pune to feed, care for and find homes for these poor animals. He earned recognition when they made reflective collars, based solely on passion and kindness for animals.

Knowing my love for dogs, he wrote to my office, not even expecting a response. I was impressed by what they had done and the compassion that Shantanu and the college kids had shown by investing their personal time and resources. I decided to invest in his start-up, and they received not just support but also encouragement to grow it through personal involvement.

I was also impressed by his sincerity and offered him a job on the completion of his studies. Shantanu took the job and joined me in my office. He shares time between assisting me in our philanthropic activities, the development of the Tata Trusts long-term plans and helping with start-up investments. He has become a member of the small team which is driven by their desire to help others. Each day has a lesson to be learnt and each day is one of fulfilment that he has brought happiness to someone, or sadness at not having been able to do so.

I hope Shantanu can be a shining light of kindness who will continue to be driven by genuine goodwill, and I am thankful that he is able to help others from deep within his heart.

Ratan Tata

December 2020

THE PAGES OF THIS book are the result more of heart and story and less of artistic capability. It is my honest narration of what some of you might see as adventures, others as essays, and even more of you as a running journal, and all of you would be right.

Many of you will turn these pages to know about Mr Ratan Tata. And while I wish I could have done only thatto fully understand him from how I see himthis is a short memoir of my life where it overlaps his.

It took courage to bring these stories to you. To be able to put my life out there, to be seen and be vulnerable. But the purpose of writing them was to bring to you facets of someone who grew into so many roles: mentor, friend, a warm-hearted and wise guide. Facets unknown to the world that has revered him only as a beloved industrialist.

On the day he finished reading the manuscript, he wrote me a letter to say how touched he was to see these stories on paper. It is a letter I hold dear, especially for the lines where he also wrote about Mr J.R.D. Tata. Jeh [as JRD was often called] used to enjoy embarrassing me, but it was our mutual love and affection for each other that grew exponentially. You have many attributes that I admire. You are like a son or younger brother, I enjoy being in your company.

My only hope for you is for these pages to leave your heart a little fuller, slightly richer, and to share what I have seen, just as I saw it.

As a celebration of the circumstances that brought us together, all author proceeds from this book will be used for the welfare of animals in need. For this, I thank you with all my heart.

STORIES THAT END pleasantly dont always start in pleasant places. This one certainly doesnt. Its hard to forget the late night when my motorcycle screeched to a stop under one of the many orange streetlights on a road in Pune. Cars sped by threateningly. I knew what I had seen that had made me pull over. Falsely hoping it might be something else, I looked at the centre of the road in the distance. A white dog with brown spots lay in a pool of his own blood. I was right the first time.

This is where it startedthe first nudge of destinys curious finger on the first domino.

He wasnt run over just once. And it wasnt even a one-off incident. It was the sixth time I had had to pull over in those couple of months with nothing left to do but stare helplessly. I used to imagine doing terrible things to the people who had run over the dogsworse to those who had run them over after they had died. Grief would fill my insides thinking about their last moments and how lonely they must have been, apart from their obvious pain. Were they crossing the road to meet their friend? To see their puppies? To find food? But its not like my conscience spared me any shame. I should have had, at the very least, the decency to move the dead dog to the sidewalk. I didnt.

At work the next day, with colourful curses, I would go on to describe how evil we are as a race, not letting anyone do their job until my passionate preaching was done. On one such preachy morning, a colleague pulled me aside hesitantly to tell me about the time he had run a dog over several years ago.

I had no choice. It was either that or to swerve the car at the last minute and drive my family off the road, he said.

Last minute?

Yes, last minute. I didnt see him until the very last minute.

After making sure I didnt hold it against him and that we were still friends, he left. But the last minute part of the story stayed with me. Was this happening with all the drivers that ran over dogs? Over the next few weeks, I was obsessed with finding out and set out to speak to people who had been in accidents involving dogs or close calls of some sort. All of them had a similar story to tell.

They appear so suddenly.

The streets arent well lit.

I didnt even get a chance to slow down

If there was any way of fixing this, it wasnt just about making the dogs visible. They had to be visible from a distance. Enough distance to give a driver time to think about what his next move should be to avoid the dog on the road.

I took all of this and sat down with Mihira, the girl I was seeing then. To call Mihira an animal lover would be a grossly unfair understatement. She was a cute little passionately dedicated animal soldier who would go to great lengths for a rescue. We discussed making the dogs visible.

We should put something bright on them. Shiny collars!

I can imagine how very lame that must sound now. Mihira must have really been into me to be into this. Or equally lame.

But being her sweet, unselfish self, she obliged.

What would we make them from?

Well, we dont have a lot of money, so something cheap? My fashion designer friends said we could use denims.

Yes! Oh, oh! We can cut denim pants! Let me go home and stitch one.

Cut pants and make dogs shine. Sure.

As an automotive design engineer at Tata Elxsi, I was aware of the reflective tape used on cars. Its bright, is seen from a distance and reflects any light that falls on it at a direct angle. I bought a few meters of the red tape for Mihira and she brought back a stitched collar the very next day, done well enough to get us excited. She also put slits and a button on it.