The 'London returned' tailor N.C. Lakshmana Row (1911 - 1992) had a three mirror trial room at his tailoring outfit on Avinashi road. Lakshmana Row was born to Chinnaji Row and Sandhu Bai at Coonoor and he belonged to a fraternity of tailors. He did a diploma in tailoring at London in 1937 and on his return, the industrialist G.K.Devarajulu had given him a rousing reception at the Coimbatore railway station by taking him out on a procession. While speaking about the clothes worn by G.K. Devarajulu, his biographer R. Chinnaswamy Naidu states that - "N.C. Lakshmana Row spent some time at Saville Row in London, learnt under the master tailors....he was a rage among the top ten of Coimbatore for sometime."
The 'London returned' tailor N.C. Lakshmana Row (1911 - 1992) had a three mirror trial room at his tailoring outfit on Avinashi road. Lakshmana Row was born to Chinnaji Row and Sandhu Bai at Coonoor and he belonged to a fraternity of tailors. He did a diploma in tailoring at London in 1937 and on his return, the industrialist G.K.Devarajulu had given him a rousing reception at the Coimbatore railway station by taking him out on a procession. While speaking about the clothes worn by G.K. Devarajulu, his biographer R. Chinnaswamy Naidu states that - "N.C. Lakshmana Row spent some time at Saville Row in London, learnt under the master tailors....he was a rage among the top ten of Coimbatore for sometime."
Lakshmana Row set up shop on his return from London and his first shop was located in the Kadalaikkara sandhu corner opposite to the Dasai Gowder store for sometime. His hard work and skill brought in a lot of clientele and the success thereafter enabled him to purchase a property from R.K. Shanmukham Chetty (first Finance Minister of independent India) for a princely sum of Rs. 17,000 on the 28th of December 1945. Lakshmana Row was the first to put up a two storeyed building on Avinashi road by 1947 and a flag hoisting was done in his premises at the dawn of independence. All the important personages of Coimbatore became his clients and he was popular with the Europeans of his times. He used to make suits, trousers, shirts and other western outfits with effortless ease. The gowns worn by European women used to be made by him. The records maintained by his sons Gopal Rao Nowley and Ashok Rao Nowley throw a lot of light on the life and career of Lakshmana Row.
"Father was a member of the Cosmopolitan Club and not a day passed without him visiting the club. He used to play Rummy and Bridge with his club mates for decades. It was a home away from home for him. If I remember right my father used to play Rummy with H.B. Setna, Moorji Seth, Gundu Babu, G.V. Lakshminarayanaswamy and G.K. Sundaram. The stakes used to be 8 annas. He was a good Bridge player too and his co players used to be G.K. Sundaram, N. Damodaran, Anganna Chettiar and S. Ramaswamy Naidu. He was quite close to Vakkil Balakrishna Naidu too. Another good friend was G.G. Naidu, the younger brother of G.D. Naidu," shared Gopal Rao Nowley who had trained under Lakshmana Row.
Lakshmana Row made a fortune out of tailoring. He used to be ever busy and took each measurement personally. Every piece was cut by him and his array of staff used to sew the fabrics up based on his instructions. His younger brother N.C. Jagannathji Row worked with him. He had purchased a number of properties and the one at the 6th street Gandhipuram was actually hired by Texmo Ramaswamy during his younger days. Another property in North Coimbatore was developed by him and it was hired by Nanco Rubber. Lakshmana Row was quite close to S.M. Sriramulu Naidu of Pakshiraja studios and he had made movie costumes for the actors Lalitha and Padmini.
"My father partnered with Peedampalli Raju Naidu and P. Ramaswamy in order to form Carnatic Corporation which used take up Government contracts. They used to get a petrol quota therefore. This was used up for his Fiat car. He used to toil enormously during the times of festivals and used to work much beyond the normal working hours. Work used to begin by 9:00 AM and went on till 1:00 PM. Post lunch work used to commence by 3:00 PM and went on till 5.30 PM. Thereafter he used to retire to the club until 9:00 PM. My father must have been the only member of Cosmoplitan club who cycled to work. We lived in Addis street for some years and by 1955 father purchased 31 cents of land in G.D street on Race Course for Rs. 11,000 from C.R. Vasantharaghava Mudaliar in order to build a house and move in with the family. Ultimately he worked from Avinashi road while residing at Race Course," added Ashok Rao Nowley.
The well preserved records of N.C. Lakshmana Row reveal some interesting details. The records from the year 1957 show him having a deposit of Rs. 10,000 in the Vijayakumar mills. The outstanding from his clients at the same time was Rs. 1,500 plus while the salaries paid to his staff for the whole year came up to Rs. 3,145. The list of clients included G.K. Devarajulu, G.K. Sundaram, N. Damodaran, K. Sreenivasan, K.K. Nair, S.R. Shanmugham, M. Ramaswamy, V.R. Venkataraman, H.B. Setna, G.V. Doraiswamy Naidu, K. Venkatesalu and R. Nammalwar Naidu. The tailoring store was embellished with teak and rose wood furniture. Some of it is still being preserved by both the sons who live at Coimbatore. The couple Ranu Bai and Lakshmana Row were blessed with a daughter Shanthi Babu Rao too. The 'London returned' tailor used to speak in English, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu.
Ranu Bai Lakshmana Row was an amazing cook and this has been passed over to both the daughters in law, Vijayakumari Gopal Rao Nowley and Jayanthi Ashok Rao Nowley. Both the sons recall the Diwali breakfast parties at the Nowley Ghar on No:6, G.D. Street. We used to be instructed by our father to purchase fish by 5:00 AM on the day of Diwali. Mother used to work really well in order to make tasty fish curry, paya' egg aappams, idly, chutney, vada and sambar. The egg filled cylindrical khaima balls made by her were a craze and a number of our guests used to send their cooks to absorb the method from her. Earlier we used to get Sun Lager Beer from C.S. Vennal Naidu, later on two crates used to come from the Premier Breweries which was located in Kerala. The guests list used to consist of G.V. Lakshminarayanaswamy, L.G. Balakrishnan, K. Venkatesalu, A.R. Jagannathan who was our neighbour, Dr.C.R. Subramaniam, P.R. Doraiswamy and their friends. There have been instances when G.K. Devarajulu and G.R. Govindarajulu used to join up with the rest on other occasions."
Ashok Rao Nowley is happy to show his mother's well preserved gold chain. "My grandmother Sandhu Bai used to leave us at P.A.R. Viswanath & Co (estd 1927) while purchasing provisions in the market and this chain was made for my mother in the shop which was promoted by P.A. Raju Chettiar. See, even the inscription 'PARV' is on this chain. We have preserved the glass bottles which contain craft work done by her based on themes which were on social issues like toddy tapping and on religious subjects connected with Bhagavatha Purana. My brother used to help her out while she put in tremendous efforts while creating stuff within the bottles. She used to knit well and used to gift a full set of woolen clothes for all the new born kids belonging to our circle. Fathers's accounting year used to begin in February and he paid his taxes properly throughout his life. I still remember my father talking about the clothes that he made for King Kong and Dara Singh. He used to state that the measuring tape ran out while measuring King Kong. The makers of modern Coimbatore were important for him and he used to advise us to emulate them."
Quality, honesty and sincerity accompanied the hard working and creative N.C. Lakshmana Row all his life. If there was one who had got it 'Tailormade for all the important personages of Coimbatore', it was just him.