This story dates back to the early 1970s. Mohan, the pro tagonist of this story, was a young man in his late twenties when he came to the big city of Madras (as Chennai was then known) from a small town deep in the south of Tamil Nadu. For the first five years he worked with his uncle, who used to run a large shop selling vessels and kitchen appliances. His position in this shop was peculiar - he was neither part of the management nor an employee. Since his uncle had two sons about his age, Mohan knew there was absolutely no way he would become a partner. At the same time, he was treated better than the employees were, he even stayed at his uncle's house.
One day, when the opportunity presented itself, Mohan spoke to his uncle and informed him that he would like to branch out on his own. He was pleasantly surprised when his uncle, instead of raising any objections, offered to help him set up his own business. Thus, with his uncle's blessing, Mohan set up S M Provision Stores in 1978 in a rapidly developing suburb of the city. In fact, he was lucky to get a prime location on rent on the main road, next to a major traffic junction in a new building. Partly because of the location, partly due to Mohan's hard work, and partly due to the fast growth of the area, S M Provision Stores developed from strength to strength. In fact, about five years from the start, Mohan was able to buy the same place for himself.
Apart from servicing houses in the area (Mohan was the first shopkeeper in the locality to start home delivery of orders) he also found another major source of custom. There were many small shops serving the poorer parts of the locality called "petti kadai" in Tamil (literally "box shops") - that were often not served by the distributors of the big FMCG companies. |
