Simla we had all heard of, what with Daddy having worked there and me having lived there as a small child. But Solan? Who knew that the out-of-the-way place located just short of Simla would play such an important part in our lives.
It all began in the 1970s when Inder Uncle, having just taken voluntary retirement from the Indian Army, joined the Solan Brewery of Mohan Meakin Limited as their General Manager, based at Solan. As children, I was in the IIT by then, we would often travel to Solan to visit Masi in our summer holidays.
Uncle’s plush official residence was called Summer Hall and was quite like the Commandant’s House we had seen in NDA. Saroj Masi, then in her thirties, and never a person to be sitting idle soon got herself occupied in knitting baby clothes and other woolens, as somewhat of a pastime. Her creative styles and superior workmanship quickly caught the eye of the small town, and a small niche market for her knitwear emerged. Soon, she could no longer cope with the demand and moved on by setting up a couple of hand-knitting click-clack machines in a spare room and by employing one or two women to assist her. The designing and finishing were still done by her but at least the laborious knitting effort was spared. It wasn’t long before even this capacity was inadequate, and that was when Masi and Inder Uncle decided to take advantage of the government incentives available to new industries in Himachal and set up a proper Industrial Unit for hosiery products.
And thus was born Saroj Hosiery in 1976, probably the first factory to be set up in the Industrial Estate at Chambagahat. It was about 1Km from Summer Hall and about 2Kms from Solan Bazaar. New machines, though still hand-operated, but faster and more efficient than the click-clack ones were installed, a good team of dedicated staff was employed and Saroj Hosiery was on its way. Good quality branded yarn and wool were sourced from Oswal Mills Ludhiana, there was no compromise on quality or workmanship. Prices, and therefore margins, had to be kept reasonable as this was a small town and people often tended to compare prices without understanding differences in quality. Sales were mainly retail, from a sales counter in the factory premises, but there was still a lot of surplus production capacity. New sales avenues needed to be inculcated. One of the first major orders came from Lawrence School, Sanawar, for the supply of a couple of hundred woolen sweaters for the children’s school uniforms. An excellent start but still not enough. More large and corporate customers needed to be on board and schools like Loretto Convent, Bishop Cotton, and Lawrence School also came on board. But still, the nearest market for volume business was Delhi.
Even as all this was going on, Inder Uncle left Mohan Meakins, to focus more intensely on the hosiery business. Uncle’s main PR and good business contacts were in Delhi, but it was difficult for him to leave the hosiery unattended and be in Delhi for an extended time. Slowly several boutique stores like Balloons (owned by the wife of then Union Minister Satish Sharma) became good customers through his efforts. Petals, Jainsons, and a couple of other retail stores also became good customers. But all this business meant that he would need to shuttle between Delhi and Solan quite frequently, resulting in unproductive time being spent on the road as well as physical stress.
In early 1981, Daddy retired from Khadakvasla and was at a loose end with no immediate post-retirement plans. Somewhere along the line, an arrangement was worked out that Daddy & Mummy would move to Solan on a full-time basis and look after the Hosiery end while Masi & Uncle would spend more time in Delhi. Besides being able to promote the business there, they also wanted to be closer to children and family.
Daddy and Mummy moved into Solan in 1981. For Daddy, managing a business was quite a major change from being a teacher. He did it all with full enthusiasm and gusto, learning, yet finding it difficult to do some of the not-so-civil things that needed to be done to keep the business going. Mummy kept out of all this, and though perhaps not as fluent as Masi, focused on the factory end, supervising the knitting, finishing, designing, the counter sales from the hosiery, and celebrating the days of good sales. Later that year Tiny and I moved to Nigeria and we would come to Solan every year in our annual vacation to spend a fortnight with Mummy and Daddy. The only way to spend a good time with Mummy would be at the hosiery or going with Daddy to Simla when he went there for some work.
On every visit to Solan, we would pick up several T-Shirts and other Saroj Hosiery Products for ourselves and for gifts.
Masi and Uncle had meanwhile settled well in Delhi and our first stop after landing in Delhi would always be their house. Mummy and Daddy would come from Solan to receive us and we would all spend a couple of days together at Masi’s place in Delhi before heading to Solan. Mohit was hardly 8 or 10 and loved these trips to Solan. At some point, Nisha and Bipin also joined the hosiery team but I think it was not challenging enough for Bipin, who at that young age had bigger aspirations.
For us, this pattern continued almost unchanged for at least a decade. Daddy had found his pace and while the Hosiery did not break any records under his watch, it did keep moving along slowly and steadily. Sadly, time spares no one. Daddy began to find the harsh winters of Solan becoming too uncomfortable to bear. Frost bites, chilblains, winter illnesses. And so they took a call that they would have to move out, to the plains of Delhi, closer to home. For us, who would normally visit Solan during the summertime, it was a little saddening that there would be no more Solan visits, but we did understand their concerns. Since nobody from the family showed any serious interest in keeping the hosiery going, Saroj Hosiery found a buyer in Dr.Sudhir Mohindru, a local entrepreneur. The sale concluded and Mummy ad Daddy left Solan in 1992 and moved to Noida. Saroj Masi and Inder Uncle had found an apartment for them identical to their own, very close to theirs, and Mummy and Saroj Masi, the two sisters began living within walking distance of each other in Sector 29 Noida.
The family interest in Saroj Hosiery began to wane too. Everybody was busy in their own lives. Children were growing, and for the newer generation, Saroj Hosiery was no more than a name that would pop up at times. They would never understand how it had impacted our lives. So last week when we got an opportunity to travel to Solan and Kandaghat, we were really looking forward to going there and exploring some of the places which we had roamed through in those happy days. We had heard many rumors about Saroj Hosiery so one of the first things we did was to try and visit the Industrial Shed from where it had been operating. We saw the same old signage Saroj Hosiery on the entrance and walked in. Both Tiny & I could recognize perfectly the workroom from where the factory used to operate, where the knitting machines used to be, the workers busy at work, the counters where the finished stock would be displayed, it all played before our eyes. Yet the place was not the same. Now there are only TWO large bed machines in the factory, one along one wall and the other along the other perpendicular wall. Both are power-driven machines, completely automatic and were chugging away at a frantic pace churning out fabric, mass producing the ‘pauncha’ of a trouser, each piece identical to the piece before and after it. As I rightly guessed, two such pieces would eventually be stitched together to form a trouser. Apparently, this was the bottom of the school uniform for one of the boarding schools of Solan. They produce uniforms for this school in all sizes for all the classes. Only two people were manning the plant – a machine operator and a supervisor. Both the machines are controlled by the operator, who is sitting and watching the process. I guess his interaction is required only to initiate or terminate the process or if there is a problem. Upon inquiry, we discovered that the machine operator was Chandermani, while the supervisor was Tekchand. Both of them had been with Saroj Hosiery since 1986. When we introduced ourselves, he could place us immediately as the Nigeria wala beta of Kandhari sahib. Tiny quickly called up Saroj Masi from there and got them to talk to her. They had quite a candid conversation that left everybody full of nostalgia.
We then went across to Mamoore Lodge, the house where Mummy and Daddy lived during their 10-year stay in Solan, and where we stayed too when we came to Solan during our holidays. The first-generation owner Dr. Gupta, whom we knew from those times is of course no more. We were met by his daughter-in-law and his teenage grandson. The grandson, of course, had no idea who we were but the lady remembered Mummy & Daddy well and we spent a very pleasant hour there. The original property portion which belonged to the family has been divided between the two sons, quite like 37 Hukam Singh Road was. Each son has developed his portion as per his taste and pocket. It is quite tastefully done and nicely maintained. There are no separating walls between the two portions, I guess it shows good brotherly relations.
The window from which we would watch the Toy Trains go past. The view is now blocked by a High Rise Building.
The portion which was rented out to Daddy & Mummy is essentially unchanged. Mohit still remembers the window in his room overlooking the toy-train railway track and how he would perch at the window watching the trains pass. Sadly, a high-rise building has now come up which completely obstructs the view. The track can no longer be seen from the window. The same is true of all of Solan. The number of high-rise buildings and shops and mall-like structures that have come up is amazing. The ‘Solan 1Km” milestone right outside the Mamoore Lodge is fortunately still there.
More pictures from the redeveloped Mamoore Lodge are below:
The Chambaghat Unit of Saroj Hosiery is now purely for production. For retail sales, the Mohindru’s have opened ‘OUTFITTERS’ a two-storeyed full-fledged multi-brand modern showroom on Rajgarh Road, one of the prominent shopping High Streets of Solan. The showroom is registered as a Unit of Saroj Hosiery (Chambaghat) and is very tastefully done. Well stocked with all kinds of products of most of the prominent brands. They also stock their own products which they brand as the Saroj Collection. We visited the showroom and were lucky to meet them there. When we introduced ourselves and delved into our ancestry, they accorded us a very affectionate and cordial welcome. Tiny once again called Masi so that they could speak to each other. Surprise of surprises, even Inder Uncle came on the phone to talk with them. I bought a nice winter jacket from there for yaadgar.
What was amazing was to observe the amount of faith they have shown in the ‘Saroj Hosiery’ brand name. They say that the Saroj Hosiery brand has always represented quality and workmanship that you can trust and they want to continue in that same tradition.
Masi started Saroj Hosiery first as a pastime to keep herself busy, then nurtured it further, and then got it growing into a full-fledged enterprise. The watchword was always uncompromised quality – if it is a Saroj Hosiery product, you can be sure it is what it says it is. And then the designs too- Masi’s creativity was reflected in the fabulous designs she created, they came from within her, not blindly copied from some foreign magazine. It is these qualities that made Saroj Hosiery a brand name. Fortunately, the new owners are following the same principles. They too have realized that it is these qualities that will stand the test of time and that customers will gladly pay for a premium product that will be hassle-free every time. The brand name is now nearly half a century old and it is only going to get stronger.