Whenever a Colossus – I mean a really big guy – dies, the “stop press” activity in today’s hyper-media age becomes frenetic. That’s exactly what happened with Ratan Tata. Everybody who was or wasn’t somebody simply reached out for their phone and let fly a eulogy on X or Insta or whatever. It didn’t matter whether you knew or had ever encountered Ratan the Great. You had to do something by rote, so you did it.
My reaction to these titanic moments is different. I tend to slip into a philosophical bubble. I began twitching at the fragility of life. Gosh, I thought HE was immortal, but even HE had to die! In an instinctive, vulnerable reaction, I started ticking off my checklist of death. Will? Yes, made. Enough cash in the bank to take care of medical treatment and one’s final days? Yes, perhaps. Will all loved ones live well after you are gone? I guess so. Will businesses continue to be healthy? I reckon so … and so on, until I had mentally checked the various boxes.
Then my jumpy thoughts switched back to Ratan Tata’s death, to the Ultimate Truth that even this larger-than-life noble person could not escape. Often, death delivers a severe impact on two kinds of people – those whom we loved, and those who faced our wrath. Life for everybody else – the millions in the middle between love and wrath – gets back to normal pretty quickly, perhaps right after the prayer service is over. So it shall be with Ratan Tata.