Been reading 'Beyond the Last Blue Mountain', JRD Tata's biography. One aspect that stood out, his life too wasn't a cakewalk.

Losing his father early, JRD had to sell off their palatial house to meet his dad's debts! Not that they were bankrupt, his father's stakes in the Tata concerns were good enough, but then he had to tidy up the financial effects of his father's philanthropy. The other part of his struggle like losing his Co, Air India, New India to nationalisation are well etched in history, that one needn't spell it out here.

But here is one passage, i particulars liked.

At the Tata Oil Mills Annual General Meeting in the early seventies, an agitated shareholder said, " Sir, the quality of Hamam soap has deteriorated sharply"

"Who says that?" JRD enquired

"My wife sir, she has been using this soap for several years."

"If your wife is so discontented she must change the soap she uses."

sir, replied the share holder, "she won't do that, she will never do that."

Then said JRD, "You must change your wife!"

Here is just one more to that

An annoyed shareholder said that even after a Tata company, New India was nationalised another Tata company was still giving it a lot of business.

Dramatically the shareholder exclaimed, "I ask you sir, 'Why?Why?Why?'"

JRD came back, "and I ask you, sir, 'Why not? Why not? Why not?'"