Tuesday,June30,2009

ABYTE OF LIFE

THIEVES ON TRAIN

Railway police arrest two for stealing jewellery from passengers

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Vol. 3No. 121

Indian soccer may have suffered its worst body blow yet with BhartiEnterprise, which promised to invest Rs 100 crore, now rethinking itsinvestment following wranglings within AIFF, reports Ayon Sengupta.

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Tuesday,June30,2009

NAMMA CHENNAI

o you have a story to tell? Or, you haveone but don’t know how to say. If youfall in the later category here’s anopportunity to master the art ofstorytelling.World Storytelling Institute is conducting acourse in storytelling from July 11. Youcould be a parent, teacher, counsellor, tourguide or someone interested in becoming aprofessional storyteller to attend the course.Each participant is required to bring atraditional story that he/she would like towork on telling. It could be a grandmotherstory, a Raja-Rani story, a Tenali Ramanstory, a fairy tale or a story in whichanimals speak.What you will be taught? Styles ofspeaking, symbols in stories, types of stories,what makes a great storyteller, storytellingaccompanied by illustrations, puppets andprops, etc.The course is spread across eight sessionsand is priced at Rs. 2,000. For details log onto www.storytellinginstitute.org or call EricMiller at 98403 94282/ 4208 0890.

he Government Railway Po-lice (GRP) on Monday ar-rested two men whotravelled in AC 2-tier traincompartments and stole gold jewellery and valuables from co-passengers. The men struck over30 times in various trains in thestate and had fled with 352 sover-eigns of gold. A total of 285.5 sov-ereigns of stolen gold jewellery were recovered from the duo,making it the biggest seizure by GRP in the last five years.Following repeated complaintsfrom train passengers over theloss of valuables from 2-tier ACcompartments, special teams were formed under the supervi-sion of the Superintendent of Po-lice (Railways), Chennai, to nabthe culprits.Meanwhile, on Monday morn-ing two unidentified persons at-tempted to rob a 40-year-old women passenger at knifepointon platform no. 1 of ChennaiCentral station. Police personnelon the premises rushed in to ap-prehend the duo after the victimraised an alarm.Upon questioning, the men ad-mitted to the crime and also vari-ous other thefts from railpassengers in the state over thelast two years. The duo from Ran-chi in Jharkhand were identifiedby police as Rajan alias RajanRam Srivastava (47) and Amaralias Amarnath Jaiswal (43), whoused to buy AC 2-tier tickets intrains after registering fakenames and addresses.“After boarding the train they would wait for the passengers tofall asleep at night and in the dark open their bags and extract allitems of value from them, securethe luggage again to prevent any sign of break-in and decamp withthe loot. The victims would noteven realise that they had beenrobbed till they went home oropened their bags,” said S. Ma-noharan, Superintendent of Po-lice (Railways), Chennai.The accused were remanded tocustody and sent to Puzhal pris-on. Police is conducting furtherinvestigations to ascertain if more people are involved.

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The duo from Jharkhand stole jewellery and valuables from AC 2-tier passengers after boarding the trainunder false names

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A section of the recovered jewellery.

PHOTO: R. SHIVAJI RAO

Two arrested fortheft in trains

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Fastrack is offering 20 per cent discount on all its watches andsunglasses. The watches post-discount are priced from Rs. 475 andsunglasses at Rs. 555. The offer is valid till July 26 and available at allWorld of Titan showrooms and Titan Plus outlets.

Once upon a time ...

Eric Miller (right), Director, WorldStorytelling Institute, at a workshop.

PHOTO: V. GANESAN

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

harmo Rakshathi Rakshith

– When you protect your duty, you get protected by the du-ty.This has been the philosophy of Giri Trading Agency Pvt. Ltd. – anepitome of rags to riches. The com-pany was started by T.V.S. Giri andis popular for books on philosophy,mythology, slokas and devotionalsongs. Its ﬁrst shop opened in 1976.Ranganathan Giri, MDof the company and youngest son of T.V.S.Giri, says, “It was dur-ing the early 50s. My father wanted to buy a

sandhya vandanam

book for one of hisfriend’s son’s thread ceremony inMumbai. He couldn’t ﬁnd onethere and this triggered him to startselling traditional books in the city.He immediately took a trip to Ma-dras and bought a few books to sellin the Matunga Railway Station andsoon he had a shack in a nearby street. This went on for nearly 20 years.”

Battling odds

Ranganathan’s older siblings –Kashi Vishwanathan, T. S. Aiyapan,Ram Narayan, Iyer Srinivas andT.S.V. Hari – felt the need to expandthe business when they were intheir early 20s. In mid-70s, T.V.S.Giri along with his sons and daugh-ters – Sharada Prakash and Mee-nakshi Balu – opened a 200 sq ftshop in Mylapore, next to the Kapa-leeshwar Temple. They got a smallspace inside the temple and soldminimal pooja items like camphor

,kumkum

and

vibhuti

along withbooks.However, the family did face their ownhardships in nurturing the business. “My brothers used to cycleto Parrys Corner, Thi-ruvanmiyur, T. Nagarfrom Mylapore to buy goods from the wholesale market.The rest of the stuff was sent toMumbai. And in Mumbai, my sis-ters used to take books in baskets tosell in stores,” recalls Ranganathan.

Branching out

By late 80s, they got popular.Ranganathan says, “We opened ourﬁrst showroom in Mumbai in 1990and another shop in Mylapore in1991. We began selling all poojaitems,

veshtis

for Shabarimala pil-grims and eventually devotionalcassettes songs.”Since then there was no looking back and they opened up branchesin Mumbai, Bangalore, Coimba-tore, Madurai and Mylapore, Adyarand Nanganallurin in Chennai.The devotional song cassettebusiness prompted one of thebrothers, Aiyapan, to begin musiccompany, Gitaa Cassettes, in theearly 1980s. By chance they starteda radio station, SS International inearly 1991 and it ran until 1999.The Gitaa Cassettes Company al-so picked up simultaneously. “Tillnow we have together released over300 cassettes and CDs of various ar-tistes from Madurai Mani Iyer toM.D. Ramanathan to S.P. Balasu-brahmanyam to Nithyasree to P.Susheela.”Giri Trading was registered in1993 and from its inception they have clients from all over the world.Currently the company, handled by the second generation, is guided by Chairman T.S. Raghavan, COO E.Bala and CEO V. Subramanian.Ranganathan sums up, “We plan togo into private equity and we areseriously thinking of starting anoth-er branch overseas.”

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(Made in Chennai is a column that showcases the evolution of home- grown businesses)

The second generation led by T.S. Raghavan is taking Giri Trading Agency places

DEEPA VENKATRAMAN

With a devotional touch

Timeline

1954 – Footpath shop started in Mumbai nearMatunga Railway Station1976 – First shop in Mylapore1983-84 – Gitaa Cassettes music company launched1990 – First showroom in Mumbai1991 – Radio station SS International launched1993 – Giri Trading Agency Pvt Ltd registered2007 – Mylapore shop expanded into 3 ﬂoors