At the time of his childhood, Navsari consisted primarily of single-storeyed houses. When Jamsetji was still a small child, a fortune-teller predicted, “this boy will travel, he will become rich, and build a house with seven storeys.” When he did become prosperous Jamsetji bought himself a large house in Bombay and built it up to be seven storeyed. It was at his father’s business that he learnt the first rule of governance. The firm, Nusserwanji and Kaliandas, consisted of a few working partners but such was the trust that they had in Nusserwanji Tata that an agreement was never drawn up. Yet the partners always received their due share of the profits.

No other industrialist of his age could match the vision of Jamsetji Tata, a small fraction of this was due to learnings gained as a widely travelled man. Coupled with his thirst for knowledge and liberal education received by him, it placed Jamsetji in an extremely rare group of men. In the same year that he joined the business, Jamsetji moved to Hong Kong to develop the China trade of his father’s firm, and then onto Shanghai. He returned to India in 1863. In 1864, he set sail for England to represent the firm. It was while he was overseas that the firm suffered a major setback and the business had to be liquidated. But during this very trip the ambition to begin the manufacture of textiles was fired in him.

Once fortunes shone on him again, Jamsetji Tata decided to undertake a venture in textiles. But before doing so he decided to revisit England. It was with the intention of gaining further knowledge that he opted to travel through Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Turkey

and Russia. He obviously delighted in travel and showed keen interest in all things big and small.

“He was not a man who cared to bask in the public eye. He disliked public gatherings, he did not care for making speeches..he sought no honour...the advancement of Indian and her myriad people was with him an abiding passion,” said The Times of India in his obituary. He had a “quiet, strong, stern unselfish determination to pursue his calling.”

Jamsetji believed that steel, hydroelectric power and technical education were the essential for industrial development. Therefore, he concentrated his energies and his genius on implementing his schemes. It was his prevision of the part they would play in the industrial development of India that Tata Steel, Tata Power and the Indian Institute of Science occupy such positions of  leadership in India.

Jamsetji Tata was a fortunate man, not only because of his genius and vision but also because of devotion of the men who surrounded him. When he began the Empress Mills he had Bezonji Dadabhai Mehta and James Brooksby. After the success of this venture, he began to think of others. He brought into the business two new lieutenants from the family, his cousin R D Tata and his elder son Dorabji Jamsetji Tata. But Jamsetji did not wish his son to “take a chair just as the master’s son”. Dorabji Tata readily accepted this role, learning a great deal about the business in the process.