Renowned businessman and film producer Atlas Ramachandran
died on October 2 at Dubai at the age of 80, following a heart attack. A
high-flying entrepreneur his jewellery business came crashing down, when he was
arrested in 2015 for non-payment of loans he had taken from banks to the tune
of Rs 1000 crore.
He was sentenced to jail for three years. Thanks to friends
who helped to meet his dues, Ramachandran was released two-and-a-half years
later. When Dubai-based lawyer Arun Abraham visited him in hospital just before
he passed away, he was optimistic about re-starting his business.
The following piece was published in 2012 when he had just
opened an outlet in Kochi.
Trusted
by millions
Dr M
M Ramachandran, the founder-chairman of the Atlas Jewellery
Group, talks about his memories of Mahatma Gandhi and other luminaries. He also
speaks about his life as an entrepreneur, film producer, distributor,
exhibitor, actor, and philanthropist
By Shevlin
Sebastian
On the morning
of January 31, 1948, Dr M M Ramachandran, the founder-chairman of
the Atlas Jewellery Group, remembers his uncle Dr. Sethu Madhavan
come running to the family tharavad in Thrissur, tears streaming down his face.
“Bapuji (Mahatma Gandhi) has expired,” he said. And the entire family,
comprising Ramachandran’s parents, uncles and aunts, cousins and
relatives, burst into tears. Ramachandran was only six years old.
“Our house is close to the railway line. On the trains, people were shouting
and crying.” They had heard from passengers coming from the north that somebody
had assassinated Bapuji the previous evening.
“No Indian
should forget the ‘Father of the Nation,’” says Ramachandran. “As a child,
my parents taught us about the ideals of Gandhi and read excerpts from his
monumental work, ‘My Experiments with Truth.’ He was an idol for me.”
He also has
memories of the late Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. “The Prime Minister came
to Thrissur a few times and gave speeches at the Thekkinkad Maidan. I would sit
in the front row. Security was casual in those days. He spoke in English and
was a gripping orator,” he says.
Ramachandran is
also a fan of Nehru’s daughter, the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. “Her
biggest achievement was the liberation of East Pakistan (Bangladesh) from West
Pakistan in 1971,” says Ramachandran. Of course, Indira’s biggest mistake
was the imposition of the Emergency on June 26, 1975. “That was when freedom
was suppressed,” says Ramachandran. “I have lived through an eventful
period of our history.”
Ramachandran, himself,
has had an eventful life. He grew up in Thrissur, as the son of a poet, V
Kamalakara Menon. Ramachandran’s grandfather was a contractor in Cochin State
and was the first to introduce cement in construction work.
“He knew all the
difficulties of doing business, and wanted my father to have a government job,”
he says. His father got a state government job and worked for several years.
Meanwhile, Ramachandran passed his B. Com from Sree Kerala Varma
College. But jobs were scarce in Kerala. Unemployment was rampant. “My elder
brother had a minor job in Delhi,” he says. “So, I went there in search of
one.”
In the
capital, Ramachandran saw ‘No Vacancy’ signs everywhere. Then the
Canara Bank opened its first branch in Delhi, and they took Ramachandran
in as an apprentice with a small stipend.
“In six months,
they made me a clerk,” he says. And within two years, he became an assistant
accountant because he had passed the Certified Associate examination of the
Indian Institute of Bankers with distinction. But Ramachandran continued
to sit for bank exams and got selected as a probationary officer by the State
Bank of India and was posted to the State Bank of Travancore in Kerala in 1966.
“Thereafter, I
worked all over the state,” he says. “Instead of going as a tourist, I went at
the bank’s expense.” He worked for seven years with SBT.
In 1973, the
economy was in free-fall. The petrol price jumped from 3.5 dollars per barrel
to 10.6 dollars. “I had an official jeep, and my car,” he says. “Despite that,
I used to travel by bus. By the 20th of the month, I would exhaust my salary. I
would request my father to send me some money.” Ramachandran felt he
needed another job.
He saw an
advertisement in a newspaper by the Commercial Bank of Kuwait for a walk-in
interview at the Connemara Hotel in Chennai. He went to Chennai by train. There
were 2,000 people in front of the hotel gates, which were closed. “Somehow, I
entered and became one of 200 persons who wrote the test.”
Thereafter, Ramachandran was
one among five who were called for the interview. The interviewer asked, “Where
is your passport, Mr Ramachandran?” It was then that he realised that
there was something called a passport. “I began perspiring,” he says. “They
told me not to worry. You are selected.” Thereafter, Ramachandran applied
for a passport and departed for Kuwait in March 1974.
They sent him
for six months of training to Athens and two months to Philadelphia. He took
over as the credit manager for domestic branches and later as international
division manager. In addition, the bank asked him to train other managers. And
for this second job, Ramachandran received an additional salary. “In
those days, I was the highest-paid Indian,” he says.
One day
when Ramachandran was returning from the bank, he saw a sizeable
crowd in front of some Indian jewellery shops. “I was young and curious,” he
says. “I stopped the car and asked the reason for this. They said, ‘Don’t you
know that the gold price has fallen? We are all queuing up to buy it.’ I was
taken aback. There was such an enormous demand for gold. An urge arose in me to
do some business rather than be an employee.”
In the
bank, Ramachandran was handling the New York and London branches. “I
had to recommend loans. The smallest of the loans was 5 million dollars. I was
running a tremendous risk. If something went wrong, the management would hold
me responsible. I thought that if I start a small business, even it is small, I
could be my boss.”
But he had
little savings. So, Ramachandran went to the chief general manager of
the bank, H J Kwant, a Dutchman, and secured a loan of 20,000 dinars. This
sufficed to pay the money for a shop in the brand-new Souk Al Watiya in Kuwait.
“No Indian dared to take a shop in such a posh place,” he says. “I had money
left over to buy only 2 kilos of ornaments but did not know the business. The
only way to learn was from a goldsmith.”
Luckily, he
befriended a Madhavan from Pallam, Kottayam. “He was not prepared to tell me
the secrets,” says Ramachandran. “I told him I am a bank manager and he
would lose nothing by passing me his knowledge. So, he told me the details.”
Ramachandran’s
jewellery outfit was a success from the very beginning, thanks to a stroke of
luck. His shop was next to the only church in Kuwait: Our Lady of Arabia.
“The Indian
maids were in plenty, especially from Goa,” he says. “They told me, ‘Jesus will
bless you! It is good you have opened your shop nearby. Now we can come to
church, buy the gold, and have a lot of time left for chitchat. Otherwise, all
the time will be wasted to go downtown. We will bring all our friends.’”
And they kept
their promise. And all they wanted was a sovereign chain and a cross. “I made
my money on these sales,” he says.
Today, Atlas Jewellery
operates in seven countries: Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, India,
and the United Arab Emirates. In the UAE, there are 24 shops, and the maximum
sales are in Dubai.
“Our customers
are mostly Malayalis,” he says. When asked for the reasons behind his success,
he says, “Give them the best. They will come back to you. My products are
authentic.”
What is 22
carat? It is 22 divided by 24 = 916.666. If pure gold in the ornament is 916,
and the rest is alloys, it is called 22 carat. “Instead of 916, we keep 920 as
our base,” he says. “In all the tests conducted by the government, it should
pass. When conventional soldering is done, other elements might get added, as
opposed to the cadmium soldering technology used by Atlas Jewellery.”
He says that the
Malayalis in Dubai, before they leave for their annual vacation to Kerala,
would buy jewellery from several shops. Back at home, they get it tested. “I am
very happy to say that when they return to Dubai, they say, ‘Sir, only yours
was 22 carats. We will bring all our friends and relatives to you.’ So, I made
my name by word of mouth.”
Ramachandran also
instinctively understood the power of advertisements. “Those days dealers would
tell me that gold should never be advertised,” he says. “People should come and
ask for it. I said, no, like any other product we have to advertise. I was the
first to cooperate with the World Gold Council to advertise gold.”
He was also the
first to distinguish between 22 and 24 carat gold. “I would have arguments with
the dealers,” he says. “I would tell them, ‘Ornaments are only 22 carat, so why
are you charging 24 carat?’ When I started Atlas in 1981, I gave
separate prices for 22 and 24 carat gold.”
Incidentally,
the word ‘Atlas’ came up by accident. When he went to get a licence from the
Ministry of Commerce in Kuwait, he suggested many Malayali, Indian, and English
names. The official said, “Myseer (which means ‘impossible’ in Arabic). This is
an Arab country. Give me Arab names.” So, Ramachandran asked the official
to give a name. The man said, “Khud Ya Atlas (Take the
name Atlas).”
In
Dubai, Ramachandran was much respected, because of his contribution
to the annual Shopping Festival. In 1996, the government of Dubai - under the
directive of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice-President and
ruler of Dubai - invited four people from the gold industry and asked for
suggestions.
Ramachandran,
who later became the chairperson of the Festival Gold Promotion Committee, came
up with the idea to give away one kg of gold on a raffle basis every day. “It
was a runaway success,” says Ramachandran. “This concept attracted a lot
of tourists during the festival and I secured an illustrious name in the
government.” In the inaugural festival, 43 kgs of gold were given away.
Thereafter, over
the years, Atlas has diversified into real estate, advertising,
photography studios and healthcare. In 2010, the company opened a
multi-speciality hospital in Ruwi, Oman. In 2010, Ramachandran was
ranked 35 on the list of the 100 ‘Most Powerful Indians in the Gulf
Co-operation Council countries.’
And, finally, on
August 25, 2012, Atlas finally arrived in Kerala with a showroom at
Edapally, Kochi. Asked why it took so long to come to
Kerala, Ramachandran said, “The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) was
only set up recently,” he says. “People were selling 18 carat gold marked as
22.”
Ramachandran made
a television programme called ‘Swarna Nirangal’ (The Colours of Gold), in which
the anchor shows an advertisement which states, ‘I will give you 916 gold.’
Then the anchor asks, “If this is a 100-year-old company, which claims to be
giving 916 now, what were they giving earlier?”
Ramachandran was
excited by the response to the Kochi enterprise. But despite this he is worried
about the economic future of Kerala. “Where is the agricultural and
manufacturing activity? Montek Singh Ahluwalia (deputy chairman of the Planning
Commission) said that if Kerala does not cultivate rice, the heavens will not
fall. I don’t agree. We must have agriculture. It is our culture and we must
not forget that.”
Another worry is
the rise of religious fanaticism all over the world. “Religion appears to play
a very important part in the life of people and nations,” he says. “It is meant
for the well-being of people. But people think that the way to salvation is
through one particular religion. It has led to a lot of destruction.”
The opposite of
destruction is creativity. Few people know Ramachandran is a creative person.
In 1988, Ramachandran set up Chandrakanth Films for production and
distribution. The first film, ‘Vaishali,’ became a box-office hit running for
111 days and is now regarded as a classic. Later, he produced ‘Dhanam’ and
‘Sukrutham,’ and directed ‘Holidays.’ He has also acted in ‘2 Harihar Nagar,’
‘Arabikatha’ and ‘Anandabhairavi.’
Apart from that,
he is also providing scholarships for deserving students in Kerala and the Gulf
countries and makes regular donations for traditional arts and culture in
Kerala. In fact, he has done a doctoral thesis on traditional arts and culture.
“In my spare time, I am trying to promote akshara shlokam,”
says Ramachandran, who is also a director of the India Vision television
channel.
All in
all, Ramachandran has lived like up to his company name:
an Atlas who has lifted the globe, on his shoulders, and in his own
individual style.
(Published in
Express Ensembles, September 23, 2012)
