N Krishnan started as a line worker earning 50 paisa per day but honesty, determination and hard work made him a business leader. He also believed that his business was an integral part of the community, sharing its joys and sorrows. Deeply religious and generously charitable, he was truly a great industrialist and philanthropist.
Text by Arvind Krishnaswamy
Yenkay was a household name not only in Bengaluru but the entire country during the second half of 20th century. Anyone who owned a two-wheeler or a car had a dashboard instrument made by Yenkay. The site of International Instruments Private Limited (IIL), makers of Yenkay products on Hosur Road in Koramangala, was a well-known landmark in the city.
This is the story of how Yenkay was born, thanks to the intelligence, honesty, hard work and perseverance of a self-made man who became a leading industrialist.
Narayana Iyengar Krishnan or N Krishnan was usually addressed as NK by his friends, associates and close members of his family. He was born to Narayana Iyengar and Sundari Ammal on September 10, 1914 in the small hilly town of Konni in the heart of Pathanamthitta district in Kerala. Krishnan’s father who was in service in Travancore princely state passed away when Krishnan was very young. His mother Sundari Ammal moved back to her native Kizhanatham village in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu with her three children. They had a house but it was in a dilapidated condition. She did not have regular income and was financially supported by some relatives.
N Krishnan studied only till “fifth form” at the Pazhamkottai Government Higher Secondary School . He gave up education at a young age due to lack of money to pay fees and other school expenses. In addition, his headmaster once imposed a 20 paise fine on him for a trivial issue, which he felt was unjustified. By this age, he was very independent and decided to start working to earn money for the family. His mother told him to meet a senior government official called Sunder Rajan who could help him and Krishnan pedalled all the way to Madurai on his bicycle.
On Sunder Rajan’s suggestion, N Krishnan went to the TVS company in Madurai. He joined as a helper in one of their workshops and his main job was to pass on tools to a person called T S Krishna, who happened to be the son of T V Sundram Iyengar, the owner of TVS Group of companies. He was paid 8 annas (half a rupee) a day as a casual worker. During these years, Krishnan stayed at Sunder Rajan’s house. Despite being a school drop out, he was good with numbers and he helped Sunder Rajan’s daughter Janaki in Mathematics as an expression of his gratitude. Krishnan had an innate ability to grasp technology and sell products, so he became a salesman.
T S Krishna saw tremendous potential in N Krishnan and advised him to independently work on his own, promising him support and financial help if needed. Till the day he passed away Krishnan revered T S Krishna as his true mentor.
Some years later, Sundari Ammal was very keen that Krishnan should get married. Krishnan expressed a desire to marry a girl who needed support, preferably an orphan. By this time Sunder Rajan’s daughter Janaki (the same girl he had taught Mathematics earlier) was alone since her parents had passed away and destiny brought them together as husband and wife. After marriage he continued to work for TVS but T S Krishna forced him to quit and start his own venture. At first, Krishnan started selling automotive spare parts in a very small way. Then on August 14, 1945, Krishnan started Associated Trades on Pattullos Road opposite Spencers in Chennai (then Madras). Even the table and chair in the office was loaned by a friend.
During the years after the World War, there was a lot of war surplus equipment being sold in Kolkata (then Calcutta). Bidding against well-established syndicates, Krishnan won the auction. His wife Janaki gave some money she had inherited to pay for the items. It included several hundred torque wrenches which were purchased by TVS. This was the first sale that got him a big profit. T S Krishna advised him to go to trade fairs abroad and look for garage tools and equipment, so Krishnan went to Germany and England. In a German fair he was fascinated by tachographs made by VDO Tachometer Werke and air compressors made by Pumpenfabrik Uraca. Krishnan became the sole selling agent for both these companies in India. In 1949, he imported and sold the first tachograph to TVS Southern Roadways, which was known for its punctuality and safe road transport services.
After years of struggle, Krishnan had laid the foundations of a stable business for a better life. Janaki asked Krishnan to get his mother from the village to Chennai (then Madras) to be with them and enjoy her son’s success. Sundari Ammal proudly proclaimed to all that her son had left the village walking and had returned to pick her up in a big car!
In 1954, Mercedes Benz joined Telco to produce the first Indian made commercial vehicles. VDO was interested in manufacturing their automotive products in India and their first choice for a partner was Krishnan, their sole selling agent. However, a hot and humid place like Chennai (then Madras) was unsuitable for making precision instruments and Krishnan chose Bengaluru which was famous for its cool, salubrious weather at an altitude of 3000 feet.
On August 19, 1958, Krishnan incorporated International Instruments Private Limited, India’s first automotive instrumentation company with a small office on J C Road. On September 30, 1959, a technical and financial collaboration agreement was signed with VDO. During the first few years, Krishnan did not have a home in Bengaluru and stayed in a room at Woodlands Hotel during weekdays.
Just when everything was looking rosy, tragedy struck when Krishnan’s mother passed away in 1962. After his mother passed away, Krishnan sold his house in Chennai (then Madras) and moved to Bengaluru. Janaki bought a site and they built “Yenkay House” diagonally opposite Vijaya High School on 15th Cross Road in Jayanagar. Just as Krishnan was recovering from his mother’s demise, his wife Janaki passed away.
Krishnan was in the difficult situation of managing his business and taking care of his two sons Badri and Sunder by himself. He decided to enroll his children in Lawrence School in Lovedale (a boarding school most recently seen in the movie The Archies) where he later built the entire Science Block of the school. K I Thomas, former headmaster of the school called him “the greatest benefactor the school ever had”.
Krishnan wanted to expand his manufacturing unit and the state government allotted him an 8-acre land on Hosur Road as it welcomed new industries in the city. Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar, the erstwhile Maharajah of Mysore and the first governor of the state, inaugurated the Hosur Road plant on January 28, 1964 in the presence of S Nijalingappa, the Chief Minister. Krishnan selected Garuda (a mythical bird symbolizing speed, extraordinary power and strength) as the company symbol. Yenkay’s advertising was handled by his childhood friend, leading advertising executive R K Swamy. By 1964, IIL became the number one OEM choice for all automobile companies. The list of customers included Bajaj, Ideal Jawa, Premier Automobiles, Ashok Leyland, Enfield, Standard Motors, Hindustan Motors, Telco, Escorts and Indian Railways. IIL’s products such as tachograph charts were vital to all transportation modes and in case of accidents, information from tachometer charts was accepted as evidence in court of law. Hence, the company had to ensure highest quality and precision during its manufacturing.
Yenkay was the first private company to give free buses and lunch for its employees. On one rainy day, Krishnan was driving from Jayanagar to Hosur Road factory in his car and he saw some of his employees getting drenched in the rain. He stopped, took some of them in his car and asked the management to arrange for regular transportation. By late 1970s, IIL had 1,600 employees and was one of the top ten instrument manufacturers in the world having made over 25 million units. In 1972, a new factory was built on a 7-acre land in the Avalahalli area to make switches and telephone dials. Krishnan was a nature lover and an eco-conscious person. He ensured that all IIL factories had trees, plants and adequate open space. He believed that a conducive environment helped bring out the best in his employees.
Under the Indian government’s policy of horizontal transfer of technology, Premier Instruments and Control Limited (Pricol) started manufacturing automotive instruments in 1975 at Coimbatore under licence from Yenkay.
IIL continued to grow at a rapid pace and became a public company on May 16, 1979. Even though the name Yenkay is synonymous with speedometers, a new plant in Bommasandra was started in 1980 to make quartz clocks, ticketing machines, efficiency recorder, telephone dial and even blood pressure gauges. During the same year, Krishnan celebrated 25 years of personal association with VDO.
Amidst all the work in growing his business, Krishnan was also deeply interested in providing educational opportunities for poor people. Krishnan had a farmhouse in Avalahalli off Old Madras Road and he saw that most of the local children worked in the fields and nobody sent their children to school. So, he had a jeep pick up children, take them to school and arranged for their mid-day lunch. He helped about 400 students living around that area through the Sundari Ammal Trust. In May 1968, Krishnan set up a NK Charities Rural Medical Centre at Avalahalli because he believed that his company was an integral part of the community, sharing its joys and sorrows. It served over 24 surrounding villages and over 150 people availed treatment daily and villagers did not pay for anything. In 1978, Sishu Griha High School was started by Yenkay Educational Trust where Montessori techniques were mingled in regional language-focused education. Krishnan often remarked, “I want to give children opportunities that I never had”.
On the personal side, he was a travel aficionado, a very keen amateur golfer who won trophies and loved carnatic music. He enjoyed seasonal concerts at the Madras Music Academy in Chennai and Gayana Samaja in Bengaluru. Some evenings, he would enjoy rummy (a game of cards) at one paisa per point, at the Bangalore Club. His table was known as “Krishnan and his Gopikas” as it consisted of six ladies along with him. He was a regular member of Gokhale Institute of Public Affairs founded by D V Gundappa (DVG) in Basavangudi. Krishnan was a very devout person who contributed to temples and a regular visitor to Tirupati.
All this work with little or no rest took it’s toll in the form of stress and illness. He had an open heart surgery done by Dr. F Mason Sones in 1976 at Cleveland Clinic in Ohio (USA), and was asked to reduce his workload. Krishnan was frequently in hospital for the last two years of his life and spent more time in Chennai (then Madras) as the pollen in Bengaluru weather was not conducive for his health. But, when he realised that his end was near, he returned to Bengaluru and passed away on February 24, 1982 in the city that had bestowed him with fame and fortune. Among the thousands of people who came to pay their respects, there were many young students whose education was funded by him.
On August 19, 1983, IIL celebrated its silver jubilee just one year after his death. Ironically, a company which had stood strong for over two decades was now on a downslide. Between February and July 1984, IIL employees went on a strike and the ensuing lockout resulted in a production loss of ₹4.5 crores. By this time, IIL had lost its market share to its competitors. Krishnan’s sons sold their stake to Mahindra and Mahindra amidst a legal dispute with the Chhabrias. There was a flurry of acquisitions and mergers between VDO, Mannesman AG, Siemens and Continental and the business changed many hands. Siemens sold the Hosur Road site to Prestige and one of the city’s prominent industrial landmarks was physically erased forever. Yenkay and International Instruments, created single-handedly by the efforts of the innovative Krishnan became only a memory.
Kanchana, daughter-in-law of Krishnan said he was a wonderful human being who was always giving and open minded. She said that the best way to describe him as a person was to quote from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar
His life was gentle; and the elements
So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, THIS WAS A MAN!
“Nothing is impossible for a man when he has absolute faith in himself,
the determination to overcome obstacles
and the dedication to work towards the realisation of his objectives.”
N K Charities
Garuda
Yenkay Product
Acknowledgement
This story was made possible thanks to the support of Krishnan Sunderrajan, Kanchana Sunderrajan, Vikram Krishnan & Kavita Sunderrajan
