Ratan Tata, and a romance interrupted

Carolyn Jones, whom Ratan Tata hoped to marry, before the 1962 India-China war altered their lives, passed away on January 18. Tata's biographer Thomas Mathew reflects on their quiet, graceful love story

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Ratan Tata with Carolyn Emmons (later Carolyn Jones) in 1962

(PHOTO: FROM RATAN TATA: A LIFE, HARPERCOLLINS)

On Sunday last, Carolyn Jones, born Carolyn Emmons, passed on in San Francisco after battling cancer. She was 83, and the wife Ratan Tata never had.

In August 1962, Ratan, 25, had returned to Mumbai to be with the ailing Lady Navajbai Tata, his adoptive grandmother and “guiding light”. But he had seriously contemplated returning to Los Angeles to spend his life with Carolyn and fulfil his heart’s desire to be an architect in the city famous for its welcoming weather.

Carolyn was the attractive, elegant, 19-year-old daughter of Frederick Emmons, the partner at the firm that gave Ratan his first job. Standing 165 cm tall, she sported a bouffant hairstyle, worn by the elite of the society, including Jacqueline Kennedy. It made her look taller and a match for the six-foot-plus Ratan.