It's hard to imagine many Indian households that aren't somehow touched by the $100 billion conglomerate named for the family of Ratan Tata, who died this week at the age of 86. Tata has been a mythical name in Indian consumers' imaginations for generations.

Ratan Tata, the former Tata Group chairman who put a staid and sprawling Indian conglomerate on the global stage with a string of high-profile acquisitions, has died, the Tata Group said in a statement late on Wednesday.

Ratan Tata—a former chairman of Tata Group who led the Indian megacompany through multiple significant international acquisitions—died at age 86, the group announced Wednesday. Tata took over the conglomerate in 1991 and led it for 21 years.