How did a Tata family visionary survive a Mediterranean Sea shipwreck and gift Bombay some premier public service institutions?
Sir Ratan Tata (centre) and his wife Lady Navajbai Tata were accompanied on the journey by his personal physician Dr Jivraj Mehta (left) and his secretary, Pirosha Mistri. Illustrations/Uday Mohite
Some stories are special for the manner in which they find you. This one came 28 years ago in the warmest way. I find myself thinking about it again, as tomorrow marks a month since the original storyteller — one of the country’s most elegant and pioneering personalities — passed on.
Simone Tata had called me unexpectedly, with an engrossing tale that involved her illustrious in-laws — Sir Ratan Tata, the younger son of Jamsetji Tata, and his wife Lady Navajbai Tata — caught in the wreck of the steamship SS Arabia, on November 6, 1916. Excited, I all but jumped hearing her ask, “Would you like details of the episode?”
The timing of her narrative was somewhat serendipitous. March 1998. Exactly when Titanic fever gripped city moviegoers, three months after the Hollywood release of James Cameron’s epic success. It coincidentally opened in local cinemas here the very week that the visionary Mrs Tata, founding force behind the iconic Lakme cosmetics brand and Westside retail chain, shared this significant information.
She added an interesting aside to the account: her friend Neville Wadia had mentioned to her how, as a five-year-old, he was once aboard the same ship with his father, Sir Ness Wadia.
The voyage of this P&O liner, in the middle of World War I, took place barely four years following the ill-fated sinking of the Titanic. England-bound, the SS Arabia was torpedoed by a German U-boat (short for Undersea, or Unterseeboote as German naval submarines were known). The Arabia, however, sank with a lower toll; fatalities totalled no more than 11 engine crew members.
Pirosha Mistri, Sir Ratan Tata’s secretary, recorded the experience in his journal
It was believed the passengers were spared despite the fact that their vessel had embarked before Diwali on Kalichaudas. “An inauspicious day according to the Hindus for undertaking even a short journey,” Pirosha Mistri, Sir Ratan’s secretary from 1901, later wrote in The Bombay Chronicle.
In attendance with the Tatas and Mistri was Sir Ratan’s trusted personal physician, Jivraj Mehta. The reputed practitioner subsequently played a pivotal role in the country’s freedom movement and became the first Chief Minister of Gujarat.
Also with the party was another medical colleague, a nurse and the Tatas’ butler.
A description of the incident is revealed in a transcript of Dr Mehta’s memoirs from the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library — “Sir Ratan having fallen ill on a previous trip to China and Japan, the family desired me to accompany him to London for treatment. Having got the benefit of the Tata studentship, I felt it my duty to respond to the call.”
All was well for some days after setting off in October 1916. Pirosha Mistri’s granddaughter, Mehroo Golvala, remembers her mother relating an amusing anecdote. When Indian favourite Alphonso mangoes were served, Sir Ratan and Pirosha proceeded to eat them in typical style, sucking the fruit upon cutting it — to the chagrin of British officers unused to the sight.
A deceptive calm had descended just ahead of the disaster. Mehta, the sole member of the group on the deck at that particular hour, observed, “At about 10 o’clock in the morning [of November 6] our ship was torpedoed. At the time the waters of the Mediterranean Sea were like a sheet of glass, absolutely without a ripple.”
The usual safety parade preparing passengers for similar emergencies had recommended they go up on deck where lifeboats would deliver them out of harm’s way. Against instructions, Mehta dashed down to bring his party up. They emerged to discover the rescue boats taken by sailors and quicker passengers. Spotting them stranded, the captain ordered a last lifeboat to wait. It was a suddenly dramatic moment, with the connecting ropes of this boat absolutely on the verge of being severed from the ship.
To quote from the P&O Heritage website: “The Arabia’s sinking produced an exchange of letters between the United States of America and Germany, despite the comparatively slight loss of life. It was said that the German authorities claimed the submarine commander had mistaken the dresses of lady passengers for those of Chinese soldiers en route for France.”
Mehta’s report continued: “First went sliding down Lady Navajbai, then the nurse, then Sir Ratan and so on the others, myself being last on the ropes.” Unaccustomed to the coarse thickness of the old coir ropes, each of them found these digging deep into the skin on their palms. The terrible, bleeding gashes needed to be treated as soon as the lifeboat touched Malta shores. Referring to her severely calloused hands, Navajbai remarked in Gujarati — “Dorda par thi utartaa mara aangle-aangla chholai gaya [Lowering myself on the rope made every single finger of mine peel sorely].”
The torpedo happened to hit the side of the ship where the coal bunkers were, so heavy pieces of coal partially blocked the surging water, which might otherwise have instantly flooded in. Consequently, the Arabia lowered slowly on the ocean floor. The strike penetrated the engine room and wrought casualties there. Seeing that the broadcasting system was damaged, if not destroyed by the considerable rocking on impact, the captain shot out rockets in the hope of attracting attention from vessels in surrounding waters.
“We were in the lifeboat for about an hour, then picked up by a fishing patrol boat,” said Mehta. “Offered accommodation in its cabins but having experienced the trouble of being in cabins when the ship was struck, we all remained on deck, including Sir Ratan and Lady Navajbai.”
The fickle sea suddenly grew choppier. Dark grey skies began pelting rain in icy torrents. Already ailing and warranting greater protection from the biting cold than the rest, Sir Ratan was at maximum risk. According to Anjani Mehta, Dr Mehta’s daughter, her father hastened to throw off his own coat and organised extra clothes to wrap his freezing patient in warmth.
Summing up the trauma, Pirosha Mistri recorded, in sketchy sentences in his diary: “We were saved but at what cost. Sliding down thick coir ropes and dropping forty feet into a lifeboat… mangled hands… a terrific storm for thirty-six hours after getting into another ship… no food or water to drink until we reached Malta on November 8 and London a fortnight later.”
Before a British representative could transport them to a hotel, the group was led to a hospital to treat their festering finger wounds which had become horribly septic. In London, a distraught Navajbai sent an urgent message to her sister Banoo (Lady Phiroze Sethna) requesting her clothes.
Pirosha’s daughter-in-law, Meheru Mistri, recalled a lighter moment that punctuated the general gloom. Although resigned to accept whatever clothing was available in such a dire situation, the properly top-hatted gentleman secretary still stared aghast at the brightest yellow socks he was given.
The tragedy did lead to Mistri having to wear high-numbered spectacles as a fallout of the shock, but back home in Bombay news about him was drastically distorted. His 11-year-old son was summoned from school with the words “Pappa gujri gaya [Father has expired].” He ran home tearfully to find grieving women assembled in black saris.
“They got the scare of their lives when Pirosha arrived instead of his body,” Mehroo Golvala says, closing the diary page of her grandfather’s account. Mourning quickly changed to merriment. The exultant family celebrated his miraculous return, hanging the customary phool-toran above the main door of their home and enjoying a hired band that played jaunty tunes.
More seriously, meanwhile, with the exposure suffered as a result of the voyage, Dr Mehta developed pulmonary tuberculosis. He nobly explained that he could probably have contracted the disease tending to TB-affected patients during his earlier practice in Bombay.
It was of course Sir Ratan Tata on whom the entire saga took a toll. What he bore was sadly irreversible. As Simone Tata said, “Sick from the start of the journey, the turn of events on the Arabia further aggravated his health problems and precipitated his death.”
The post-traumatic stress caused Sir Ratan’s fragile condition to worsen, to the extent that a steady deterioration led to his demise in September 1918 in St Ives, Cornwall. He was buried at Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey, the resting place of his father Jamsetji and elder brother Sir Dorabji.
Navajbai went on to adopt Naval Tata, father of the late Chairman of the Tata Group, Ratan Tata. Philanthropy and community service alone did not set her apart. Navajbai’s legacy of corporate leadership emerged in 1925, with the distinction of being appointed as the first woman director on the board of Tata Sons, a post she graced till her death 40 years after. She was, as well, the first Parsi lady on the board of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet. To provide livelihood to poor women of the community through meaningful employment Navajbai established the Sir Ratan Tata Institute (RTI) in her husband’s memory. With deepening concern for destitutes and the underprivileged, she chaired the Sir Ratan Tata Trust.
Those dangerous storm clouds did eventually hold a silver lining. That Navajbai Tata survived this misadventure on the seas indeed proved fortuitous for the world.
Author-publisher Meher Marfatia writes fortnightly on everything that makes her love Mumbai and adore Bombay. You can reach her at meher.marfatia@mid-day.com/www.meher marfatia.com
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