دانلود کتاب فراتر از آخرین کوه های آبی – زندگی J.R.D. تاتا

After the release of the first edition of this book in January 1992, two events of note took place. The first was the award of the Bharat Ratna to J.R.D. Tata on Republic Day 1992, and the second was the bestowing of the United Nations Population Award, 1992, on him for his pioneering and sustained efforts for family planning in India. The Bharat Ratna was mentioned in the second edition, but I felt a completely revised preface was necessary for the paperback edition, the first to be printed after his death on 29 November 1993. His passing away received press coverage worthy of a prime minister. Weeks after his death, articles, letters, advertisements and hoardings continued to appear; the message of his former company, Air India, would have made him rejoice: He touched the sky and it smiled. He stretched out his arms and they encircled the globe. His vision made giants out of men and organisations. A couple of years before he passed away he told me more than once that he wanted to die abroad. ‘All chairmen of Tata Sons have died abroad,’ he would say. I did question J.R.D., ‘Even if they happened to die abroad, why do you want to do so?’ ‘If I die abroad,’ he said gently, ‘I will be no bother to people here.’ The well-known journalist, M.V. Kamath, wrote after J.R.D.’s death, ‘In his life what J.R.D. did was what any pilgrim might have wished to do: go always a little further beyond the last blue mountain, wishing to know what lay there.’ One of J.R.D.’s traits was that he questioned every major concept, not because he was averse to it but because his logical mind wanted a clarification. In that process he often clarified the other person’s thinking. During our last conversation shortly before he left for Europe on his last visit he questioned me at length about the concepts we were discussing; that meeting (described at some length in the Epilogue) revealed that J.R.D. wished to know what lay beyond the last blue mountain. One of the major topics of that dialogue was the hymn, “Abide With Me”, the last words of which are: Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies: Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee; In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me! When J.R.D. was living I concluded this biography with the words: And as the evening mellows and the shadows lengthen, somewhere above in the sky, in an invisible Puss Moth, is a voyager still pressing ahead to cross beyond the last blue mountain where a glorious sunset awaits him. I hope I was mistaken and that beyond that last blue mountain heaven’s radiant morning embraced him.