Ratan Tata on his parents' divorce, differences with father, grandmother's support and breakup

“I had a happy childhood, but as my brother and I got older, we faced a fair bit of ragging and personal discomfort because of our parent’s divorce, which in those days wasn’t as common as it is today," Humans of Bombay quotes Tata as it begins the post.

Tata said it was his grandmother who "brought us up in every way". "our grandmother taught us to retain dignity at all costs, a value that’s stayed with me until today. It involved walking away from these situations, which otherwise we would have fought back against," said Tata as he explained how other boys as the school said "all kinds of things" about him and his brother after their mother remarried.

"I still remember, after WW2, she took my brother and I for summer holidays to London. It was there that the values were really hammered in. She’d tell us, ‘don’t say this’ or ‘keep quiet about that’ and that’s where, ‘dignity above everything else’ really embedded in our minds," added Tata.

Talking about the differences with his father, Tata said, "I wanted to learn to play the violin, my father insisted on the piano. I wanted to go to college in the US, he insisted on the UK. I wanted to be an architect, he insisted on me becoming an engineer."

He added that it was his grandmother who helped him get admission in Cornell University in the US. He said that it was because of her that despite enrolling for mechanical engineering, he switched majors and graduated with a degree in architecture.

"My father was quite upset and there was a fair bit of rancour, but I was finally my own, independent person in college, and it was my grandmother who taught me that courage to speak up can also be soft and dignified," Tata said.

After college, Tata landed a job in an architecture firm in LA, where he worked for two years. It was in LA that he fell in love and "almost got married".

"It was a great time -- the weather was beautiful, I had my own car and I loved my job. It was in LA that I fell in love and almost got married. "

However, Tata decided to move back temporarily since his grandmother wasn't keeping well and his relationship fell apart as the person he was in love with decided to not move to India with him.

"So I came back to visit her and thought that the person I wanted to marry would come to India with me, but because of the 1962 Indo-China war her parent’s weren’t okay with her making the move anymore, and the relationship fell apart," Tata added.