When Ratan Tata spoke about not having a wife or a family to Simi Garewal: 'It does get a little lonely...'

The beloved industrialist and philanthropist, Ratan Tata passed away on Wednesday at 86. The iconic personality remained unmarried throughout his life.

In one of the oldest conversations with Simi Garewal, Tata shared that he experiences loneliness sometimes because of not having a wife or a family.

“There are many times that I feel lonely about not having a wife or a family, and sometimes I long for it,” said Ratan. “Sometimes I enjoy the freedom of not having to worry about the feelings of someone else or the concerns of someone else. On other times, it does get a little lonely,” he added.

When Simi asked him what stopped him from marrying, he replied, “A whole series of things (stopped me from marrying) – timing, my absorption in work at the time. I came close to getting married sometimes, but it didn’t work out.”

More from Entertainment

'Jugnuma' Movie Review: Manoj Bajpayee-Deepak Dobriyal’s terrific performances stood out in this beautifully restrained way of storytelling 'Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale' Movie Review: The final goodbye of Julian Fellowes’s beloved British soap

Simi Garewal, who fondly remembered Ratan Tata , wrote a description of him on her YouTube channel, which read, “Ratan Tata was my first friend in Mumbai. We had both just returned from abroad into terra incognita; both at the threshold of an uncharted world. Despite his decades of success, Ratan’s humility and integrity never wavered.”

She continued, “For a man who stays clear from the flashbulb glare of fame, it was generous of Ratan to be my first guest on Rendezvous. My crew was floored by his lack of pretense. I remember he shook hands with each of them before leaving – in his Maruti!”

In the same conversation, Tata opened up about the perception of being ‘a recluse’ and said,  “I think I suffer from that. It comes from… You’re in the office all day, around a lot of people, a lot of telephone calls, and there’s some sense of serenity in having a departure from that. You remember when we first met many years ago, walking on the beach and so on was something I enjoyed. I still enjoy it. And there’s something in that solitude. A lot of thinking gets done, and a lot of unwinding gets done in that process too.”