Syamal Gupta - An Eulogy

 

I will remember Syamal Gupta, or Syamalda to me and many of his friends and colleagues, as a man

1.      of complete integrity

2.      of impeccable character

3.      of inconspicuous charisma

4.      of innate empathy

5.      of intuitive networking skill

6.      of self-effacing leadership, and

7.      of unbounded curiosity.

He had neither greed nor jealousy, and above all, he believed in plain living and high thinking. In short, he was more like the person described in Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 2, Verse 71.

विहाय कामान्य: सर्वान्पुमांश्चरति नि:स्पृह: |
निर्ममो निरहङ्कार: स शान्तिमधिगच्छति ||

vihāya kāmān yaḥ sarvān pumānśh charati niḥspṛihaḥ
nirmamo nirahankāraḥ sa śhāntim adhigachchhati

That person, who gives up all material desires and lives free from a sense of greed, proprietorship, and egoism, attains perfect peace.

On 20 April 2022, the family of Syamalda—his wife Chandra Gupta, and his three daughters, Debjani Sen, Damayanti Gupta, and Anuradha Gupta—organised a memorial meeting in the auditorium of Bombay House. His friends and family packed the auditorium. Additionally, nearly one hundred persons joined the forum over Zoom, including Rajive Kaul, Rima Sen Mortemart, and me  representing the Imperial College London Alumni Kolkata Chapter - Syamalda was a distinguished alumnus of Imperial College. Alice Gast, the President of Imperial College, joined from London. Each speaker paid rich tribute to Syamalda.

Syamalda began his career with the Tatas in 1956, at age 22, as a trainee in TISCO. He moved up through many companies of the Tata Group to Tata Exports and Tata Sons. He rose to hold senior positions such as Director Tata Sons and many Tata group companies, including Chairman of Tata International Limited.

He was deputed to Singapore to start Tata’s first significant international investment, Tata Precision Industry. In 1982 he was appointed Managing Director of Tata Exports, now called Tata International Limited, which was the global business arm of the Group. He expanded the company’s activities across geographies and businesses into new areas.

He was the Honorary Consul General of Namibia in India and sat on the Presidential Advisory Councils of Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Ghana.

He retired from active service in 2009. After retirement, he continued to contribute his expertise to the Group’s charitable work, serving as a Trustee of the Tata Medical Center Trust and Chairman of Tata Eastern Medical Trust until his last day.

He led the creation of Tata Medical Center in New Town, Kolkata, a philanthropic state-of-the-art Cancer Care Center. This medical centre has fulfilled a long-term requirement in eastern India of comprehensive cancer care.

If you asked what he brought to Tata, the answer would point to the collaborations - with BP, Rolls Royce, Mitsubishi, AIG, Bratten Witter, and MacDonald Douglas.

In his admission, he was not a businessman but a professional. He believed that short-term gain is a long-term disaster. He thought that if you followed technology, money would come.

Tata’s philosophy of donating the profits back to society influenced him profoundly. He knew that the founder of Tata didn’t start rich. When the company began 120 years ago, the founder told his sons that they should ensure good roads, schools, hospitals, and living conditions wherever they built. That’s the culture at Tata - a belief that one can live well if the society lives well. What comes from the people must go back to the people; this is a statement he heard, listened to, and followed in his life.

Recently, Imperial College Alumni Stories updated Syamalda’s profile after his death. It recalls
that he was a Fellow of Imperial College, a Visiting Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and a member of the Energy Futures Laboratory Advisory Board. He was also a member of the Advisory Board of Quest Partners, a management consultancy firm, and the Dean’s Advisory Board at Schulich School of Business, York University.

Syamal Gupta (right), Keith Onion, Rector, Imperial College (centre),
and Hirak Sen (left) - Kolkata, 8 January, 2014

About the innovation at Imperial College, Syamalda said, “My training at Imperial shaped my approach to innovation because you spend some time studying what’s been done in the past, but it’s more about moving forwards. Imperial starts where others have ended.” Such a statement makes all of us here proud.

In India, he grew up seeing coal-fired chulha’s that filled the homes with smoke. That experience motivated him to investigate greener solutions to generating energy. He recognised that solar power is renewable, sustainable, pollution-free, and distributed, and he initiated a solar power venture. In the 1980s, he brought commercial solar power to India. 

In his autobiography, Quintessentially Tata (2020), he summed up his Tata innings of over half a century. This book is a must-read for all those simply curious or actively interested to know about the Tata visionaries and the working of Bombay House, the head office of the Tata group in Mumbai. The book is available on Amazon. It is well worth reading.

I first met Syamalda three decades ago in Mumbai. Eric Ash, Rector of Imperial College, was visiting Mumbai. On that occasion, Syamalda invited Imperial Alumni from India to meet Eric and share their thoughts with him. The business session was held during the day at the Taj Mahal Towers. Later in the evening, Syamalda hosted a dinner at the banquet hall of the Taj Palace Hotel for the Imperial Alumni and many eminent citizens of Mumbai that were interested in science and technology.

During that meeting, Syamalda profoundly influenced me. Since then, he kept in touch with me via email and an occasional call over the phone. Conversations with him covered many subjects, and they always inspired me. I am blessed to have known him.

I will now end my eulogy by recalling an incident in 2019 which set an alarm bell in me. My wife and I were visiting Mumbai and staying in Oberoi Towers, located literally across the road from Syamalda’s home in Nariman Point. I had planned to see Syamalda at his home at his convenience. So I called him from the hotel and told him that we were across the road and would like to visit him and Chandradi at their convenience.

However, I was alarmed when Syamalda quietly excused himself in a somewhat strained voice, citing some preoccupation. This was most unlike him. Typically, he would have warmly invited us for tea or dinner. Thus alarmed I called a common friend to inquire whether all was good with Syamalda. Sadly, the friend told me that he had cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy. My heart fell. After that, he and I continued to be in email and telephone contact many times over the past three years, but he never mentioned his disease. When I asked him about his health, he said he was not very well.

That was Syamalda. He kept his trials and tribulations to himself and brought only positive thoughts to his friends.

He lived his life well, and his values, thoughts and deeds touched many lives, including mine. I salute the man. 

[ Syamal Gupta: 15 April 1934 - 1 April 2022]