Lobby encounter

As the lift door opened, a guest at the Taj Mahal hotel in central Delhi, a property managed by the Tata group, was surprised to find Ratan Tata waiting in the lobby to take the same lift. The guest immediately whipped out his mobile phone and requested a "selfie" with Tata, much to the discomfort of the publicity-shy chairman emeritus. With Tata murmuring excuses about being in a rush, a hotel executive appeared just in time to usher him into the lift. Tata was in the capital last week meeting key central ministers and senior government officials along with his joint venture partner for the group's second airline project. So the photograph would certainly have had historical value.