R.K. Krishna Kumar, who passed away recently, has been rightly eulogised as a man who built and ran huge conglomerates within the Tata empire and displayed great perseverance in rebuilding the flagship hotel in Mumbai after the dastardly attack on November 26, 2008. He was arguably Ratan Tata’s true confidant. What is perhaps less known is that he was a kind, considerate and compassionate man, one of the very few Mother (now Saint) Teresa would describe to me as “my friend”.
I first heard the name of Krishna Kumar from a group of humble sisters of the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata. They were carrying bundles of papers one morning just as I was entering Mother House. I was curious enough to ask why — because they usually carried medicines or clothing for the poor and not official-looking papers. Giggling, they said they were going to the office of Mr. Krishna Kumar, the vice-chairman of Tata Tea, because he had welcomed them to his office any time to make as many photocopies as they might need. For good measure, they added that each copy cost two rupees in the photocopy shops and his generosity saved them a lot of money.
When I met Mother Teresa a few minutes later, the question uppermost in my mind was who was this gentleman who had given such open access to her sisters. She then told me an interesting story.
Some time ago, one of her co-workers in Calcutta had told her that Tata Tea had a biscuit factory but any biscuits that were not perfect were not marketed. Broken biscuits were discarded. Before long, Krishna Kumar got a surprise when Mother Teresa with half-a-dozen companion sisters arrived at his office. As was her wont, she came straight to the point. Could you please have all the broken biscuits for the poor? He, quite dazed, recovered his equilibrium and passed immediate orders that in addition to the broken biscuits, a large quantity of “complete biscuits” would be sent to Mother Teresa’s organisation for distribution to the poor.
Much later, I began to call on him in Mumbai to seek his help for two NGOs I had set up for helping differently-abled children and the healthy children of leprosy patients. He offered the unstinted support of Tata Trusts in Mother Teresa’s spirit of compassion. My visits to Mumbai were centred on meeting him and officials of the Tata Trust. His direct help led to four years of project support. Some 300 young women from leprosy backgrounds were trained by us and became beauticians. Nearly 1,500 young men were trained in computer software applications and now stand on their own feet. Almost 32,000 former leprosy patients received medical check-ups and medicine, much needed but since ended. The very same man who could set up and run huge conglomerates did also agree to support my two small NGOs because he was compassionate enough to understand Mother Teresa’s spirit that even if the ocean was less by a single drop, it was still worth doing.
(Navin Chawla is a former Chief Election Commissioner and biographer of Mother Teresa)
navinbchawla@hotmail.com
