It was not only the more than one lakh workforce of Tata Group of companies, its subsidiaries and ancillaries which mourned Ratan Tata’s passing, but a pall of gloom descended in each and every household of the Steel City of Jamshedpur which Tata was so fond of.
From spending time on Shop Floor Management of the then TELCO, rechristened as Tata Motors by Ratan Tata himself, for a global pursuit to make it a point to be part of the famous March 3 Foundation Day (anniversary of JN Tata) celebrations at Jubilee Park near Sakchi Market, Ratan frequented the lovely city where the Tatas dreamt from making salt to software, tea to trucks and from car to business czar since early 1900s.
The city of Jamshedpur is also known as ‘Tatanagar’, and the fondness of the Tatas for the city made the Jharkhand government declare a day of State Mourning as a mark of respect for industrialist Ratan Tata. As a young trainee, Tata resided in Room No. 11 of the Dealer’s Apprentice Hostel at TELCO.
In a social media post in July 2020, Tata recalled his first visit to Jamshedpur during a college holiday. “I remember the first time I ever visited Jamshedpur when I was on holiday from college. Mr. R. G. Da Costa and Mr. J. D. Chokshi invited me to visit the Telco plant and have a walk around. This trip was much before I started working on the Tata Steel floor, my first interaction with the legacy city of Jamshedpur,” Tata posted.
Ratan Tata’s first visit to Jamshedpur was in 1963 to look into how Tata Steel, TELCO worked and last was in 2021 after which he could not turn because of frail health reasons.
Ever since the news broke people from different walks of life thronged Tata Centre to pay their homage to the legend who died at Mumbai.
He also visited the city to attend various company events, including the inauguration of blast furnaces, and social gatherings.
A retired Tata Motors employee, KC Johannan, who had several interactions with Ratan Tata and also his predecessor JRD Tata on the Shop Floor of TELCO said that Ratan lived with a zeal to give the company and Jamshedpur global recognition.
“This first things he (Ratan Tata) was that he worked on company’s insignia which was changed from old model of writing `T’ within a circle to the present format of T which signifies opened line, highways, roads or you can mean that only moving ahead. As far as I remember Ratan Saab had shared to us that the new logo will compete with the Europeans, and it was being designed in the UK,” remembered the retired Foreman of Tata Motors.
