At 92, printing shop at Triplicane a quaint reminder of old Madras
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Brothers Manickam and Ramalingam at Green and Co. in Triplicane.
| Photo Credit: R. RAGU
In the long row of drab-coloured shop facades on bustling Triplicane High Road, one shop stands out: with its doors and walls painted a bright green, this 92-year-old book binding shop, tucked away behind a bus stop, is still in business.
Green and Co., was established in 1932, says co-proprietor C.N. Manickam, 65, as printers and binders, and though the shop had to give up its printing business after its old printing press became outdated with the advent of new technology, their manual paper cutter and hot press machine, both nearly a century old, continue to operate.
Enter the doors and there is a counter behind which a smiling Mr. Manickam greets you. Right behind him, and taking up nearly half the shop, is the manual paper cutter. Next to it sits the hot press. On the other side is a perforating machine – to make for tearable slips in bill books.
To begin, Mr. Manickam and his brother C.N. Ramalingam, who also runs the shop, take a book, place it in the machine, and rotate the handle of a wheel on the cutter. The machine cuts away all the edges of the book’s sheets, making all four sides neat, sharp and uniform. Next, the book is bound, and in order to ensure the binding stays in place, the book is placed in the hot press, where a weight presses down upon the new binding, to ensure it sticks solidly.
Both pieces of equipment were bought from the Indo Europa Trading Company, says Mr. Manickam, and work flawlessly. Neither require much maintenance, says Mr. Ramalingam, 69. Both, he says, have functioned continuously for as long as the shop has been running, except for a break of one year during World War II.
Back in the day, when book binding was practically a ritual for every school and college student and was also much in demand for bill books, account ledgers and the like, the brothers’ grandfather, S. Chengalvaraya Mudaliar, who along with a partner, founded the shop, had a thriving business. It was continued by his son – the current proprietors’ father – but in time, with computers coming in and digital paper cutters replacing manual technology, demand has dwindled.
“Some of our old customers continue to remain loyal – they give us orders for bill books and other items, we get them printed outside and then bind them here,” says Mr Manickam, adding that the business is enough to get by.
All around the shop are reminders of a slower and perhaps gentler era of Madras: bill book pages from applam shops and ice cream stores, from a time when these kadais were a common sight in neighbourhoods, churning out snacks, their shopkeepers tearing out bill slips from hard-bound books.
What of the future? The brothers smile and shrug. None of Mr. Ramalingam’s three children want to take over the business, and so, the two say they will run it until they are able to. The doors will remain green, the machines will continue to run.
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