Portrait of an icon: Ratan Tata, up close & personal

We all know Ratan Tata the industrialist. He was in a class of his own. But what was he like as a person? What sort of childhood did he have? Were there women he loved but did not marry?

- Karan Thapar

And what were the things that mattered the most in his private life? Normally we would never have found out. The great joy of Thomas Mathew's recently published book Ratan Tata: A Life is that he reveals the answers.

Tata's parents divorced when he was just 10 and he was brought up by his grandmother. Lady Tata was a grande dame who lived in a huge mansion with dozens of liveried servants and a Rolls Royce.

When I interviewed him for the BBC, Tata insisted he wasn't spoilt but admitted he'd been pampered. He said it with a wink and a smile.

Mathew tells us his parents' divorce had a huge impact on both Ratan and his brother Jimmy. It made them insecure. They were ragged, even humiliated, in school. At this point, he became very close to his grandmother; in fact, devoted to her.