Book Review: The Creation of Wealth by R.M. Lala

The book has a winner of a tagline - The Tatas from the 19th to the 21st Century. That's a great premise and there's quite a lot to cover - from the grand plans of Jamsetji Tata to the recent transition to Cyrus Mistry. I picked it up because I admire the work of the Tatas. Having spent my entire life in Mumbai, I know first hand how their philanthropy has touched the life of millions and expected this book to provide an interesting insight into the group and its origins.

The Tata group is probably the only national industrial house that continues to uphold its integrity and ethical standards missing in its contemporaries. Over the last 145 years, it has seen a fair share of churning and has to its credit phenomenal achievements in the fields of steel, automobiles, software, and telecommunications.

So does this official "best-selling" edition with a foreword by J.R.D Tata and and epilogue by Ratan Tata live up to the expectations? A big NO. The latest edition of this book, which came out in 2004 is clearly outdated even for the early nineties. Adding a couple of pages in the end about the Nano makes not an update! While you do get a sense of the Tata's past and work in the book, many achievements and failures are missing. I don't know the relationship the author shared with the Tata group, but he approaches the topic like a soft-spoken, obedient servant. The bias is obvious in several chapters and there is no hint of candid thoughts or disclosures that were new for the time of the book's release.

The first section that covers the life of Jamsetji Tata is the least painful part of the writing but things nosedive from there. The illustrations in the book are by Mario Miranda and are a sharp contrast to the poor writing. The book has gone through a few editions since the early nineties when it was first published and the update has been very shoddy. The book needs major revisions at a lot of places. I lost count of the number of times the same bit of information reappeared. And this happened often enough to irritate me. I would be surprised if this book was ever edited and if there is an editor, I would love to share my detailed views with the person's boss. While we are at it, the indexing was the work of a total amateur. This clumsy update has no business being up on bookshelves asking for money.