While much is known about Ratan Tata’s remarkable business accomplishments, his personal life, particularly his marital status, has largely remained under wraps.
In a 2011 interview with CNN, the industrialist disclosed that he came close to marriage four times, each time stepping back out of fear. He stated, “I came seriously close to getting married four times and each time I backed off in fear or for one reason or another. Each occasion was different, but in hindsight when I look at the people involved; it wasn’t a bad thing what I did. I think it may have been more complex had the marriage taken place.” He acknowledged that he had “seriously” fallen in love four times throughout his life.
During one of those instances, Tata revealed he had been in a relationship with an American woman he met while working in the United States. He recalled, “I was probably the most serious when I was working in the US, and the only reason we didn’t get married was that I came back to India and she was to follow me. That was the year of the Indo-Chinese conflict. This conflict in the snowy, uninhabited part of the Himalayas was seen in the United States as a major war between India and China, and so she didn’t come and finally got married in the US thereafter.” He returned to India in 1962 due to his grandmother’s illness.
In a conversation with TV host Simi Grewal, Tata expressed his feelings about being single throughout his life. When Grewal asked, “What motivates you without a wife, without children, without family?” he responded, “I don’t know what motivates me but let me just stay with that for a minute. There are many times I feel lonely at not having a wife or family and sometimes, I long for it. But sometimes, I enjoy the freedom of not having to worry about the feelings of someone else or the concerns of someone else.”
