“Goodbye, my dear lighthouse.”
A lighthouse is often a sight from heaven for a mariner or a vessel in despair at the sea. Eminent businessman and philanthropist Ratan Tata had, over the years, proved to be that and more for many who found themselves at sea in life and work.
The light went out last night, but the glow will remain forever.
One person who can certainly vouch for Tata's human touch is Shantanu Naidu, the founder of Motopaws, an animal welfare organisation, and Goodfellows India, a startup that provides youth companionship to senior citizens. Both these projects were funded by Ratan Tata.
The 31-year-old posted a heartfelt post mourning the passing away of the titan of India Inc., with a picture of the two of them together.
Who is Shantanu Naidu, and how did the friendship with Ratan Tata blossom?
Age was never a bar in the friendship between this millenial and the octogenarian. Love for animals and a shared passion for societal welfare brought them together.
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It all began in 2014 when Pune-native Naidu, an automobile engineer from Savitribai Phule Pune University, developed an innovation—reflective collars—to save stray dogs from being run over by speeding vehicles. The youngster was working for Tata Elxsi then, and he sent a letter to Tata explaining his business proposal. An impressed Tata called him over for a meeting and agreed to fund his project and start-up Motopaws, thus sparking of an unlikely friendship between two animal lovers.
Such was Tata's affection for Naidu, that he attended the latter's graduation dinner in Ithaca, after Naidu completed his MBA from Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management in 2018. Soon, Naidu became Tata's most trusted executive assistant and later, the deputy general manager.
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Tata was the guiding light for Naidu's another start-up, Goodfellows. The company employs young graduates to provide companionship to the elderly, with an aim to form bonds between the two generations. The subscription-based company was launched in 2022, with seed funding from Tata. Goodfellows offers internships and the chosen 'goodfellows' are retained and groomed to form long-lasting bonds with the 'grandpals'. What makes it different is that other similar services usually have to depend on the availability of volunteers and thus, it's often not possible to forge lasting bonds.
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Naidu is on the board of the Tata Small Animal Hospital in Mumbai.
Naidu's book I Came Upon a Lighthouse: A Short Memoir of Life with Ratan Tata is a treasure trove of anecdotes of his friendship with the chairman emeritus of the Tata Group. For a person who guards his privacy fiercely and rarely appears in public, Tata comes across as a modest and humble titan in the pages of Naidu's endearing memoir. For instance, Shantanu writes it is he who organises cupcakes with a single candle to celebrate Tata's birthday!
Unmarried and childless, Tata, perhaps, saw a son in Naidu. Or, a pal. Only he knows.
