J R D Tata by M A Shewan

Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata was a legend in his life time. Under him Tata group diversified into a large number of sectors from airlines to hotels, trucks to locomotives, heavy chemicals to pharmaceuticals, financial services, tea, information technology, etc. He was also the longest serving member of the Atomic Energy Commission.

Quiet spoken, with piercing green-blue eyes, and acquiline nose and an aristocratic air, JRD remained a much revered figure within the Tata organization and some what of an Institution abroad. A casual dresser, he refrained from the ostentatious lifestyles of many Indian industrialists, preferring to live in a rented bungalow surrounded by skyscrapers in downtown Bombay.

JRD scoffed at the idea of being characterised as the Rockefeller of India. "I have never had an interest in the accumulation of wealth". He says, 'I have always been more interested in what wealth can do for the betterment of society.'

"I suppose the big difference between the Tatas of India and the other great founders of trusts and foundations is that, while the Fords and the Rockefellers have remained very wealthy, the Tatas have retained very little individual wealth".

He reckoned that this personal wealth was probably just over $.200,000, noting: "I am not even close to being a dollar millionnaire because whatever I inherited I put in a charity trust many, many years ago".

JRD entered the Tatas as an unpaid apprentice in December 1925. His mentor was John Peterson, a Scotsman who had joined the Group after serving in the Indian Civil Service. At 22, soon after his father passed away, he was on board of Tata Sons, the Group's flagship company.

At the age fo 34, in 1938, JRD was elected Chairman of Tata sons making him the youngest head of the largest industrial group in India. His leadership at Tata Sons, at the beginning had 14 enterprises which half a century later had expanded to a conglomerate of 95 enterprises.

Breaking from the common practice of having members of one's family run different operations in a business, JRD urged to bring in professionals to the table. He turned the Tata group into a business federation, where enterpreneurial talent and expertise were encourage to flower.

He for the first time, pioneered the system of developing 'employee welfare schemes' in corporate India and steered the principles of an eight hour working day, free medical aid, workers' provident fund and accident compensation schemes, which were later, adopted as statutory requirements in India.

Self effacing, modest, wistful and endearing are a few of the (adjectives) laurels used to describe JRD.

In 1992, because of his selfless humanitarian endeavours, JRD Tata was awarded India's highest civilian honour, the BHARAT RATNA. In the same year, JRD Tata was also bestowed with the United Nations Population Award for his crusading endeavours towards initiating and successfully implementing the family planning movement in India, much before it became an official governmental policy.

JRD never forgot these words uttered by his father, the Founder:
"We do not claim to be more unselfish, more generous or more philanthropic than other people. but we think we started on sound and straightforward business principles, considering the interests of the shareholders our own, the health and welfare of the employees the sure foundation of our success."

-Jamshetji



Sarojini Naidu by M A Shewan

The respect and dignity of Indian womanhood lives throuth the names of Sita, Savitri, Draupadi, Damayanti & Shakuntala. Referring their glorious names and comparing them with fragrance of nasturtiums is really an outstanding achievement

"Your(Nasturtiums) leaves interwoven of fragrance and fire
Are Savitri's sorrow and Sita's desire
Draupadi's longing, Damayanti's fears
And sweetest Shakuntala's magical tears.

In praise of Rajput Queen, Rani Padmini of Chittor:

What can rival the valiant joy
Of your dazzling fugitive sheen?
The limpid clouds of the lustrous dawn
That colour the ocean's mien?
Or the blood that poured from a thousand breasts
To succour a Rajput Queen
                                                   ...In Praise of Gulmohar blossoms

The song of Radha-the Milk maid

These curds that are white as the clouds in the sky
When the breezes of Shravan are blowing?

But my heart was so full of your beauty, beloved
They laughed as I cried without knowing:

Govinda! Govinda!
Govinda! Govinda!

How softly the river was flowing!

The beauty of the Indian village in verse:

A brown quail cries from the tamarisk bushes
A bulbul calls from the cassia-plume
An oxcart stumbles upon the rocks
And awistful music pursues the breeze
From a shepherd's pipe as he gathers his flock
Under the pipal trees
And a young Banjara driving her cattle
Lifts up her voice as she glitters by
In an ancient ballad of love and battle
Set top the best of a mystic tune
And the faint stars gleam in the eastern sky
To herald a rising moon

To the flower girls:

What do you weave, O ye flower girls?
With tassels of azure and red
Crown for the brown of a bridegroom
Chapelts to garland his bed
Sheets of white blossoms new gathered
Tp perfume the sleep of the dead.

The Bhagavad Gita by Dr. S G Mudgal

On seeing all the kinsmen or relatives, thus standing in battle order, Arjuna, the son of Kunti was overcome by great compassion and said this in sadness: O krishna, seeing my friends and relatives standing before me ready for war and eager to fight, my limbs are quivering and they have lost their strength, my mouth has become dry. My whole body is trembling. My hair is standing on its end. The great bow (Gandiva) is slipping from my handand I am getting feverish. I have no strength to stand. My mind has become restless.

Krishna replied: Arjuna, In this hour of crisis, wherefrom has this dejection overtaken you? It is a disgrace to leave the battlefield and give up fighting. Do not yield to impotence and recall all the many battles you have fought and your spirit of adventure and success stories are quite well known. To bring back Arjuna to his senses and stiop him from committing an infamous act of quitting the battlefield, Krishna preached Arjuna to the Celestial Song of the Gita:



Jiva(life) is nitya(eternal) except that it is perishable in all forms. Krishna says that the material body of the indestructible eternal living entity does come to an end and urges Arjuna, who is the descendant of Bharata, to fight the war. It is said that jivas as reflections of the all pervading and imperishable God, the jivas are embodied and the gross bodies of the eternal jivas which we see are subject to destruction or come to an end. Therefore, Arjuna, fight.

Arjuna, whenever there is decline of righteousness and when there is rise of unrighteousness, I send forth myself, I descend myself-The mission being to lead People towards God and appreciate doctrines of religion.

For the protection of the good and for the destruction of the evil or the wicked and for the establishment of law of righteousness, I come into being aeons after aeons. This is referred to as the Incarnation of the Lord.

He who works giving up attachment to fruits offering them to God, with the belief these works get performed by him for his own welfare, is not touched by sin, like the lotus leaf which is not affected by mirth of water

He who is steady and unmoved by opposites like heat and cold, honour and dishonour, he who is satiated with the objects of senses and to whom the clod of earth, a stone and a piece of gold are equally insignificant, is the truly liberated one.

He who is equal minded about the indwelling God among friends, companions and enemies, the indifferent and the impartial , the hateful and the related, saints and sinners, is said to be the enlightened one.

God is indwelling in all these People and knowing that there is no difference between God as he is and his various forms and attributes. Having obtained this level of Yoga, he thinks that there is nothing greater to gain beyond it. And once established in it, not even by the heaviest of the sorrows. he is shaken.

Hence, Arjuna, FIGHT!