In a 2011 interview to CNN, the industrialist had revealed that he came close to getting married four times in his life, but backed off each time due to fear.

“I came seriously close to getting married four times and each time I backed off in fear or for one reason or another. Each occasion was different, but in hindsight when I look at the people involved; it wasn’t a bad thing what I did. I think it may have been more complex had the marriage taken place,” he said, adding that he had “seriously” fallen in love four times in his life. (Also read: ‘The clock has stopped ticking’: Harsh Goenka, Anand Mahindra pay tributes to Ratan Tata)

‘She got married in US’

One of those times, he confessed he was in a relationship with an American woman who he had met while working in the US.

“I was probably the most serious when I was working in the US and the only reason we didn’t get married was that I came back to India and she was to follow me. That was the year of the Indo-Chinese conflict. This conflict in the snowy, uninhabited part of the Himalayas was seen in the United States as a major war between India and China and so, she didn’t come and finally got married in the US thereafter,” he said.

Tata had returned to India in 1962 after his grandmother fell ill.

‘I feel lonely at not having a wife’

In an interview with TV host Simi Grewal, Tata opened up about being a bachelor all his life.

“Without a wife, without children, without family – What motivates you?” she asked him.

“I don’t know what motivates me but let me just stay with that for a minute. There are many times I feel lonely at not having a wife or family and sometimes, I long for it. But sometimes, I enjoy the freedom of not having to worry about the feelings of someone else or the concerns of someone else,” he said. (Also read: Ratan Tata’s guest remembers his Colaba house with ‘middle class furnishings’)