The visitors book and photo album at Veeco Sarees speak a million words. Kudos to K.S.Veerannah Chettiar (KSV), C.V.Mohanasundaram and C.M.Ravikumar for having put in the efforts to record and preserve the narratives. K.S.Veerannah Chettiar was born to Sowdaiya Chettiar in the year 1907 and lost his parents early. He was at Madras, joined a Brahmin family and spent about a decade with them.
The visitors book and photo album at Veeco Sarees speak a million words. Kudos to K.S.Veerannah Chettiar (KSV), C.V.Mohanasundaram and C.M.Ravikumar for having put in the efforts to record and preserve the narratives. K.S.Veerannah Chettiar was born to Sowdaiya Chettiar in the year 1907 and lost his parents early. He was at Madras, joined a Brahmin family and spent about a decade with them.
KSV worked with a number of cloth merchants in Godown Street and this experience was to help him in life later. On returning to his hometown Coimbatore KSV worked in a bank and also at the famous textile shop - S.Bheemiah Chetty. He was married to Kuppammal and the couple was blessed with C.V.Mohanasundaram, Dr.C.V.Shanmugham (Veeku Surgery), C.V.Subramaniam and Jeevarathinam.
K.S.Veerannah Chettiar belonged to the community of weavers who prayed to Goddess Ramalinga Sowdeswari known as Sowdamma from the very beginning. The Devanga Puranam shares interesting nuggets about the mythological origin of this weaving community. The weavers speak Telugu and were residents of Hampi, the capital of the Vijayanagar Empire during its heydays. They migrated to the Tamil speaking parts of the Empire during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
The availability of cotton perhaps induced them to settle down in the Coimbatore region. Lord Veerabhadraswamy at Perur happens to be the family deity of K.S.Veerannah Chettiar, the founder of K.S. Vee & Co (founded in the year 1945). KSV was a smart businessman who understood the value of branding and was quick to register VEECO with the trademark authorities.
"My father could speak a number of languages which included Telugu, Tamil, Hindi, Kannada and English. Our shop and house were located in the same place on R.G.Street from the early days. In spite of not having done any kind of formal education he was able to achieve success. Since he had moved with businessmen from Madras, father decided to sell Coimbatore cotton sarees to them. Those were times when sarees just had a tape border and did not have any bhuttas on them. The sarees without any workmanshop on the body used to measure 7 or 8 or 9 yards and these kind of sarees formed part of the Veeco business over 70 years ago.
The firm started selling headgears to Maharashtra. The yarn was locally purchased, given to weavers and conversion charges were paid to them. The dyeing process was completely local and from 5 looms we went upto over 200 looms in a few years. All the weavers used to exclusively weave for us and would not accept outside work. One of our uncles were also involved with the work. Father used to outsource too based on the commercial needs and he used to take care of sales, collection all by himself for years. He used to go upto to Salem, Mysore, Bengaluru, Madras, Nellore, Bombay and Vijayawada for business., stated C.V.Mohanasundaram of Veeco Sarees while sharing some snippets about his father.
K.S.Veerannah Chettiar was an active social leader. He was on the committee of Sanmarga Sangam, Arulmigu Ramalinga Sowdamman Temple, Vivekanandar Illam, Devanga High School and was closely associated with the Thiruvembavai Committee. He was an active Rotarian who had hosted a US Team in his house while serving the organisation through the Rotary Club of Coimbatore West. A Sri Lankan Rotary Governor was quite close to him. He was on friendly terms with a number of eminent Coimbatoreans.
Prof G.R.Damodaran, P.R.Ramakrishnan (Member of Parliament), S.R.P.Ponnuswamy Chettiar, N.Mahalingam and P.A.Raju Chettiar were quite close to him. 'Geetha Bhodagar' N.Giridari Prasad was a good friend. He was quite particular to invite a number of prominent citizens for the annual pooja at Veeco Sarees and the invitees used to oblige him through their participation.
C.M.Ravikumar, the third generation at work spoke about his forebears, "Grandfather had an uncanny knack with people. He could communicate well and make friends in a jiffy. Plus he used to follow-up on all the issues concerned with business. The customers used to know him personally very well and it used to be of great help. His ability to speak in the language of his clientele made him a big hit. Grandfather was a strict disciplinarian who expected neatness and was a down to earth person. He was not bothered about luxury ever. I used to come in khakis to the shop as a boy and began by stitching parcels.
My grandad ensured that the parcels were of good quality and all our clients used to state that the sarees were safe because of the packing quality. Father joined business sometime around 1956 and even before that, he used to attend to work in our piece goods store in Big Bazaar Street. He used to invite publications concerned with women and fashion to visit our store. It was because of his efforts that Vimla Patel of Femina visited our store.
Femina used our sarees in a special feature and it was much appreciated. We were also catering to apparel makers in India and abroad. The Handloom Export Promotion Council Award was recieved by us in the year 1995. Fabric was exported to Europe and the U.S.A. Sarees used to be sold for Rs.20 and they moved on to Rs.150 before becoming about Rs.2000 over the decades. Our sarees were sold all over India and we had many top retailers among our clients.
My father C.V.Mohanasundaram used to make the graph, drawings etc., and it used to be given to the weavers.It was when nice bhuttas, pallu designs etc., started becoming a part of the cotton saree world and it became fashionable to wear them. These exclusive weaves were made for the customers of Veeco and they simply loved them. Our saree design collection was special and it catapulted our business to good heights. The good work of our elders is now part of handloom history in Coimbatore."
C.V.Mohanasundaram has been in business for over 60 years and was glad to recount the visits of a number of important personages, "Movie actors, journalists, writers, military people, business people, prominent ladies from the society, movie people, singers, politicians and members of their families, social workers, top bureaucrats, top police officials and why even the members of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal have been to Veeco Sarees. A huge crowd used to assemble right in front of the store and this used to cause a traffic jam instantly.
We used to take photographs of the visits while also registering the exclusive comments in our specially made guest register. I am glad that we have been able to preserve the photo albums and registers. I hope that I do justice while recalling some of the visitors - N.T.Rama Rao (Former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh), Defence Minister V.K.Krishna Menon, Mrs. C.N.Annadurai, Mrs.Ujjal Singh, Khushwant Singh (writer & journalist), Asha Bhonsle (Singer) Kamala Sivaji Ganesan, Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan (violinist and music director) actors Padmini, Vyjayanthimala, Lakshmi, Usha Nandhini, Sathyakala, Cho. Ramaswamy, Dilip Kumar, Sowcar Janaki, Thangavelu, Saroja, Rajasulochana, Kamalhasan, Kumari Chachu, Kavitha, educationist Rajammal Devadas and important ladies from the industrialist circles - Chandrakanthi Govindarajulu (P.S.G.R. Krishnammal College), Thayarammal Devarajulu & Rajyalakshmi Jayawarthanavelu (Lakshmi Family), Srivalli Krishnaswamy (Rajalakshmi Mills), Prema Soundararaj (SNR Family). Our guest registers have remarks in Japanese too. We are happy to take our heritage forward through our business."KSV used to gift Veeco sarees to the foreign dignitaries who visited the Rotary Club of Coimbatore West and by doing so he functioned as a cultural ambassador of our people.
Prof Vijaya Ramaswamy of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi has chronicled the cotton textile export that used to take place between the tenth and eighteenth centuries from the peninsula. About 100 ports were used for these exports when Indian textiles ruled the world of maritime trade. The weavers and merchants from Coimbatore were part of this stable which added to the wealth of the people of India.
Veeco sarees founded by K.S.Veerannah Chettiar belongs to this rare tribe of enterprises who have added quality and profits to the sector by taking it forward. The well maintained guest register and the lovely black & white photographs preserved at Veeco Sarees are the relics of not just one firm, but of the handloom sector and the city.