Atlas Ramachandran is no more. A look at his life and career

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)