Ratan Tata, the legendary industrialist and philanthropist, passed away at 86 on Wednesday in Mumbai’s Breach Candy Hospital after a brief illness. In a one-of-a-kind tribute, a Surat jeweler crafted a portrait of Tata using 11,000 diamonds. Now viral on Instagram, the video garnered over five million views.
Social media users admired the Surat-based jeweler for the portrait and shared heartfelt tributes for the departed soul. "He deserves more than this (sic)," a user wrote. "11,000 diamonds can’t shine like real diamond Ratan Tata. Some things are irreplaceable (sic)," yet another user said.
"We need to do all this while the person is alive imagine the amount of happiness he wud have felt seeing this love while alive," another user wrote. A user said: "I can proudly say that I lived in the era of Ratan Tata sir (sic)."
"Yes he is Indian Kohinoor," a user mentioned. "He is more worthy for us (sic)," another said.
Tata, who passed away on October 9, was respected widely for his contributions to India's growth story. Under his leadership from 1991-2012, salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Group's revenue grew over 40 times as the conglomerate expanded into sectors such as IT, steel, automobiles and telecom.
Some of his iconic acquisitions include Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and Corus Steel, which played a key role in positioning the Tata Group at a global stage. Ratan Tata also headed the launch of Tata Nano, marketed as the world's most affordable car, with an aim to improve accessibility to modern products for India's lower-income population.
In his later years, Ratan Tata became an angel investor and supported several startups like Ola, Lenskart, Paytm, Cure.fit, Urban Company, Snapdeal and Urban Ladder. He has also backed ventures like Zivame, CarDekho, Teabox and Abra.
The veteran indiustrialist's focus was on startups working in areas such as emerging technologies, healthcare, e-commerce and social media ventures. Ratan Tata was not only an investor for these startups but also guided them as an advisor and mentor.