I woke up to the Hariprasad Chaurasia’s  melodious notes that was that alarmtone I had  set on my mobile. My TATA Titan watch showed 6AM. After grazing through the paper, I had piping hot TATA Tea that Geetha had managed to make by 7.30AM, the time it dawns for her.

I had a bath, breakfast and quickly glanced through the news that my TATA Sky was beaming in my idiot box. I had an SMS intimation on my about the last instalment for the car loan I had taken from TATA finance. 

At 9 Am I went to the Passport Seva camp for my passport renewal in my  spacious light blue TATA Manza. The Passport Seva camp too was being administered by TATA TCS.

On my way, I encountered numerous TATA Buses & lorries busily ferrying people, children, goods, vegetables, all sorts of household goods  etc.

After returning from the Passport office, I logged into my laptop with my TATA Docomo Wifi to make some online payments. I first paid the TATA Power utility bill of my friend in Mumbai as he was in his village & the payment had to be made to avoid disconnection. I then cleared off TATA Docomo bills using online payment. Perhaps some of the banking software that was used in my net banking transactions were coded by TATA TCS techies as we Indians fondly call them.

At 1 past noon, I had to take my client to lunch  at the TATA Taj Blue Diamond hotel that was originally built and started by Kirloskars long back as a decent place  in Pune to house their foreign clients and visitors.

When I reached home I found  a TATA Ace vehicle in my drive, with Flipkart logo that was just delivering the Xaomi that  my son had ordered. The TATA Ace, in my opinion is TATA’s one single  most interesting and  innovative idea in more than a century of TATA’s existence. The numerous utility options  that the little elephant can be converted  to and its compactness in narrow bye lanes make it quite interesting. Being a psychological mood elevator to drivers and with the cabin window panes styled to resemble the ears of Ganesha, this thing is bound to be a special Indian success case history & is more than just a mere vehicle.

In the evening Geetha & I dropped by Ishanya the tallest residential flat of Pune under construction, to see if something could fit into our pockets. Incidentally this was being put up by TATA Housing. At a cost of  1 crore plus per flat, we understood that we had to get much deeper pockets stitched to our dresses. while returning, we did not fail to see the brightly lit TATA Starbuck coffee store at Koregaon.

During the drive, Geetha was disturbing me about the afternoon chai meet with her doctor friend Deepali , who had shown the jewels from TATA  Tanishq which her hubby had gifted her on her birthday. Now, this uninvited exhibition of the gift meant that I might have to  soon provide for “Sudden Unforseen Capital Expenses” in this years budget as her birthday that is 3 months away. The financial wizard that my finance minister at home is, she will just pass this with the same glee & ease that MLA’s pass the resolution on their salary rises.

Geetha’s eyes were attracted by the mannequins adorning the glass windows of the blue and green striped TATA West Side store. I had to utter something about my in laws smartness, as only that was capable of diverting her attention.

While returning we stopped by the TATA star bazaar to pick some TATA iodised salt and other provisions. We also had to stop by TATA Eye Plus for getting the frame of my glasses repaired as I regularly fling my spectacles out of frustration at site.

My sis phoned up saying that they had received an alliance proposal for her daughter working at TATA TCS. Her elder daughter who was also at TATA TCS had married  a person in our same caste who also worked in TATA TCS.  However this time around the proposal was not from a TATA TCS recruit but a different TATA company. With such a huge workforce a TATA matrimony ( perhaps it unofficially exists) would ensure that all new entrants need to just check for their would-be’s in the TATA directory, before they can settle into their new cabins.

Whenever at the airport I used to laze through the TATA Croma store on the latest e-gadgets. The prices are relatively higher. I just did “shop till you drop” of window shopping in the cool comforts of the airport.

Had Ratan TATAji’s “hotly pursued dream” to set up Banglore airport in tie up with Singapore Airport Authority succeeded, we would have been flying in & out of Banglore through a TATA airport. Strangely his keen interest in the Indian aviation sector never gets diminished inspite of the demoralizing & frustrating experiences with the Indian government red tapism. A lesson in perseverance  for all of us.

TATA’s have weaved themselves so intricately into every warp & weft of our lives that it would be apt to begin saying : TATA- byebye,cherio.

Signing off, with some help from Utopia,

rsk

I now understand that an ex army captain joined TATA Defence Systems to defend himself from his wife’s missiles at home, who happens to be my school classmate.