90s - Starts @ Madurai

Life was entering the next phase –more of work. One certainly did not have the answer for Why is a mining engineer selling paints? But I guess it was about making choices around what one likes to do. I had chosen consumer marketing over consumer banking after summers at Grindlays.

Meenakshi Temple Madurai - Wonderful Architecture

Sri & I landed in Mumbai checked into YMCA Colaba and while he went to join Lintas, I went to Bhandup to join Asian Paints  - A bunch of 25 of us some 17 from campus and rest were laterals. Manish Mehra was the best dressed wearing a tie in a otherwise Spartan setup. We were then allowed to park ourselves at YMCA Bombay central for a 1 week induction after which we were posted across the country. Verghese Antony would explain the philosophy of Cossacks warrior tribe being applied to us. Apparently the Cossacks would leave the new born out in the cold and only take them in if they survive and the trainees were sent to field first. I was posted to Madurai – the home of Meenakshi –Sundareshwarar temple, as Branch executive.

Madurai was a unique city with all modes from bullock carts to buses  and  temple chariots all competing for the narrow space on roads. The city was beautifully built around the temple with streets in concentric squares. Best for bachelors was to stay in a lodge – extended hostel without the attached mess. But the city had a plethora of Messes for food – segmented for breakfast or tiffin, coffee, meals etc. Then there was Arya Bhavan by night which started late afternnon and went on till about 1 or 2 in the night. For weekends there was the Marwadi bhojanalayas to just hog.

Ravi Kannan and Me in a meet in Madurai

Ravi was the Branch Manager . A compact team with Shankar at Godown, Vaithy in Sales, Kutty in admn as seniors made me learn the ropes of sales and branch admin. It was great fun – the branch was home and one had the keys to it. The branch office was earlier a rice mill and had high ceiling. Only the branch manager’s room had AC and we could experience the law of physics that cool air settles down – so it would be cool if seated and we could feel the heat if we stood up.  Computers were nerve centres working on 8 inch floppy disks that had to be couriered for data transfer. All branches had telex machines and was the chat medium for us trainees post office hours.

Ravi is a great guy, making everybody feel at ease, allowing plenty of room to experiment and learn. Whether it was forecasting or schemes, local promotions or setting up systems he would spend lot of time making us learn. Madurai was a focus branch as it had low market share and attracted regular attention. Monthly reviews at the regional office in Bangalore held by the Regional manager Kannan, was a test and reflection of how the trainee was shaping and also rated the branch. Kannan blended sophistication and earthiness and was a great people's guy - again very detailed in observations and action. 2 large dealers RP Balakrishnan (RPB fondly called Annachi) &; AS Dhanushkodi Nadar (ASD), I got to directly handle was a great experience. Both were wholesalers, had their strengths which had to be leveraged and should at the same time not steamroll rest of market.

Me Annachi and Shankar

RPB  proclaimed as the King of Asian Paints had built the business from humble beginnings and was testimony to how the asian paints network got built. He had learnt from life, was sharp and spoke well. He had his favourite expressions. He would want to speak of what next and not dig into the past saying ‘past is just like a rear view mirror’. He was proud of keeping the shop open into the night as he believed the Pandian kings had Fish in their Flag as ‘a Fish never sleeps and Madurai never sleeps’. I would go to see him after dinner at Arya Bhavan by night post 11 pm. Managing sales and collection in wholesale business was not easy .  ASD’s Natarajan on the other hand was an instinctive 2^nd Gen wholesaler and liked talking about everything else but business and would often take me home for dinner and then close business – sales or payments.

Bacchanalian nights@ Metro Palace - Me, Parag, Manish

6 months down the training we all came to Mumbai for 2 weeks or mid-year orientation and it was the batch getting together again and when one got to know each other better sharing a variety of experiences. Daytime was spend in training with Ponappa being the chief for this round. For a week or so we went through PTP a rigourous program of theory and practical making us become painters first. After a tiring day we would get back to Metro palace at Bandra where we stayed and contribute to Casbah to drown the day and raise the spirits at night.

New home at Chennai

On the home front, the new home father decided to build in Chennai took shape. He wanted to live far from the madding crowd and built one at Chitlapakkam where there was no shortage of water a big problem those days in Chennai. Though Chennai was overnight a trainee had no leave accrued till a year and there were no home breaks.

Madurai and such cities ensured a whole bunch of trainees focused just on work and learning the ropes as there was little to do other than watching movies in theatres and in a city like Madurai even going to a theatre can get noticed and the shop boys would often know which movie and show you had gone to. Ramesh working with Lakme also spent some time in Madurai, trying to make women in south shift from using turmeric to Colour their skins to cosmetics, and great company when we could meet once in few weeks. I am not able to recollect how we managed to connect and coordinate those days in the absence of mobile phones. I think most often it was preplanned or just cold calling which worked.