On an October dawn in 1932, a Puss Moth and I soared from Karachi on an inaugural flight to Bombay. As we hummed towards our destination, I breathed a silent prayer for the success of our venture. We were a small team. We shared successes and failures, joys and headaches, as we built up the enterprise which blossomed into Air-India and Air-India International.

The early decades of the last century witnessed a veritable flurry of aviation activity. A new mode of transportation was– –literally––getting off the ground. India, however, was largely unaffected. If, a century later, Indian aviation is flourishing, the credit should go largely to J.R.D. Tata.

Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata was born on July 29, 1904. Many found his name quite a mouthful, so his friends called him Jeh while the world knew him simply as J.R.D.. It is not likely he had many enemies. J.R.D. was the son of Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata and Suzanne Briere. His mother was French and he later married a Frenchwoman, Thelma Vicaji. He adored France. India is rather fortunate that the lure of France never overcame J.R.D.’s sense of duty to this country––a cause to which he devoted more than half a century.