RHYTHM CD SHOP CASE

Submitted by group 11
Members
Rex J Mannoor
Malini S
K. Ashok
 RHYTHM CD SHOP

This is a shop situated at Vagamon; the owners of the

shop are Mani Rathinam and her son Raj Kumar. They are having
a CD shop along with a soda manufacturing unit. This is the only
licensed CD shop in Vagamon. This was started 7 years ago that is
in the year 2001. This was started by her young son Vel Kumar.
The inspiration for starting the CD shop was her sister who
supplied most of the Video cassettes to him. When time and
technology had grown he had shifted from Video cassettes in to
CDs and DVDs. During the initial period he provides video
cassettes and VCRs along with TV. This gave a lot of business
during this period because there were no TVs with the local
people. His services provided a great time of leisure to the village
people. He used to get a rent of Rs.250 for this service. After the
introduction of cheaper TVs and Video players this service was
stopped and started to concentrate on renting of CDs and DVDs.
He had a great collection of all type of movies in all languages. He
is having movies in Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi and English. He says
that the choice of movies changes with the age, children require
action films same time youths requires the latest films, old people
requires middle aged films. His customers are the local people who
are well known for him. He provides DVDs at a rent of Rs.20 and
CDs for Rs.10. Most of the customers are for Malayalam films. He
used to purchase these CDs from Erattupeta which is the nearest
town to Vagamon. He used to purchase it weekly. The cost per CD
is Rs.40. Daily around 10 CDs are given for rent. He says that a
CD can only be given for at least 10 times. After that it has to be
replaced.

There are a lot of problems faced by him for

this CD shop. One of the main problems is that this Shop is
situated on the government property which is facing a problem of
being removed from there as a part of road expansion. Another
problem faced by the family and the CD shop was the death of his
son Vel Kumar. He passed away 9 months before. The CD shop
was under his control and it was going well. Every Thing turned
upside down due to the sudden death of Vel Kumar. After his
death this shop was closed for some days. During that time around
200 CDs were given for rent and none of them were returned. The
shop was reopened by his elder brother Raj Kumar. He needed to
start everything right from the beginning. He is also facing a
problem of raid by police who used to cease lot of CDs in the name
of Pirated CDs. There many shops were cds are sold. This never
affected his business since they only sold the cds while he gives it
for rent.

Mani Rathinam was born and bought up in

Vagamon. Her father was a military driver. He was from
Virudhanagar Tamilnadu. He ran away from army to Vagamon and
started farming and vegetable business. He was known as
‘pachakari nadar’ all over Vagamon. She was married to Rathinam
and gone to Kambam. She came back along with her husband to
Vagamon because of the climatic problems. They had started a tea
shop next to their home. This was 45 years ago. This shop was
started by her father and mother. Her father died 35 years ago, after
her father’s death the shop was taken care by her mother and her
sisters. Mani Rathinam has 3 sisters and an elder brother. The
sisters helped her mother in running the shop till they got married.
Her mother passed away in the year 1996. Her name was
Thennama. Her younger sister was the first person in Vagamon to
pass the 10th standard.

Mani Rathinam along with her husband

started the teashop 14 years ago opposite to their house on
government land. At that time they required only a capital of Rs.
500 for starting that shop. This was their own money. At the
starting period the cost for snacks like ‘vadas’ and ‘idlilies’ cost
only 50 paise. The raw material costs were also very less during
that days, for e.g. the cost of sugar during the initial period was
Rs.5 but now it is increased to R.20. They were mainly
concentrating on local people. They are having 3 children namely
Vijay Kumar, Raj Kumar and Vel Kumar. When days passed on
there business started to boom. The main reason was the bus stop
was in front of their shop. The people needed to wait for the bus
for a long time which made them to have tea and snacks from the
shop which increased their business. They provided idly and curry
in the morning and snacks till evening. Local people preferred their
shop because of the hospitality and the taste of food. Their
Business started to go down since the bus stop was shifted from
there to down part of Vagamon. They lost many of the customers
and new shops were started next to it. After the death of her
husband, Vijaya Kumar and Raj Kumar took over the shop.
Everything was going fine until unexpected fate took over Vijaya
Kumar in the form of death. The family was shocked and they felt
like they were lost. After his death the tea shop was closed
permanently. Here now remains only her second son and the only
hope Raj Kumar. Now he is running both CD shop and the soda
manufacturing unit.

Raj Kumar the second son of Mani Rathinam,

He was born and bought up there and he is well known to everyone
in the village. He doesn’t have any political relations or any
relations with any other social organisations. He had studied up to
8th standard. After completing 8th standard, he was asked to
continue his studies, but he was not interested and he ran away
from there to his aunt’s house at Theni. Running away from home
was considered as a fashion those days. From there he was taken to
Chennai and he started working there in a soda manufacturing
company. After 2 years he returned back to Vagamon he started
going for works for other people. At that time there was a soda
manufacturer with machine. He was not able to run the
manufacturing units because of health problems. So he was
planning to sell the machine. Raj Kumar came to know about it
and he purchased it in the year 2004. He planned to start a new
soda manufacturing firm. For that purpose he had gone to SBT and
he had got a loan of Rs.30000. Rs. 10000 was paid for the renewal
and modification of the CD shop. The machine was bought on
credit; it was paid after the sanctioning of loan. It took around 1
year to get a loan. This loan was paid back within 3 years. In the
year 2006 he had changed the machine. The machine cost rs.20000
for him. He got this money from his past savings.

He is trying his level best along with his mother to

control both the business. His work starts right from the morning.
During this time he has to start preparing soda. He produces soda
along with the flavored soft drinks. The mix for the soft drink is
bought from Kallaketty which is on the way to Kanghirapally and
it is prepared by his mother. She also washes the bottle. When Raj
is busy with soda manufacturing, Mani Rathinam will take care of
the CD shop. He is the only person in Vagamon having a soda
manufacturing unit. He use to fill around 240 bottles a day. It
Differs according to the season. He supplies it to the local shop by
Auto. During the delivery time itself he takes the remaining empty
bottles from the shop. He is also having competitors in this field.
The main competitor is the soda supplier from Erattupeta, who
brings soda by jeep. But, Raja is having advantage over him. The
supplier from outside has to pay for the transportation. The cost at
which Raj sells a case of soda that is 24 sodas for Rs. 35. But the
rate of competitor is Rs. 40 per case. He also tells that the water of
Vagamon is having a taste of purity, which is far better than the
hard water from Erattupeta. He also faces a problem of water
scarcity during the period of summer when Vagamon dries out.
During this time he has to pay for the water that is around Rs.300
per tank. More over during winter and rainy season the business
will be damn low. The shop was opened in 2001. In the initial
period he was having of sales of around 10 cases per day and now
it is increased up to 15 cases per day. He needed to purchase Tops,
salts, essences etc from outside. Top costs more for him. It costs
around 35 paise/top. Salt costs around rs.50. This can be used for
the preparation of 100 cases of soda. There are many type of
flavors used, ginger, orange, lemon are some of them. The essence
cost around rs.400/liter. This can be used for the preparation of
around 30 cases. He used to buy ½ liter essence. He used go
according to the need only. He never keeps any stocks since it may
get destroyed because of the climatic conditions of Vagamon. He
is having some future plans about the soda manufacturing unit. He
is planning to change the machine. It will cost around rs.20000, for
which he have to find a source. He had already purchased many
bottles. He used to get around rs.2000/week as profit from both cd
shop and soda manufacturing unit.

Vagamon is a small village town. This is

a hill station were tea is the main cultivation. There are many
beautiful places in Vagamon which attracts lots of tourists
including foreigners. There is no particular tourist season for
Vagamon. There will be tourists all over the year. During the
holidays the will be more local people coming for visiting. Rhythm
cd shop which is the only licensed cd shop in that Vagamon town
is located at the starting of Vagamon town. This area is known as
‘Puthiya Chanda’ which means new market. Most of the people
who live over here are workers who work in tea factories or
working on daily wages.