R.T. Chari.

How many businessmen will think of building an auditorium, not to make money, but mainly to conduct programmes of their choice and to derive great joy in throwing it open to friends and well-wishers as well?

Such programmes always preceded or followed by delicious South Indian tiffin. Food for the stomach and food for the soul! Doing it month after month for the last twelve years has been R.T. Chari, a businessman who is committed to propagating Classical Indian music and heritage.

This auditorium he built on TTK Road is the TAG Center. It is in his office there that I met him one evening.

Chari was born into a typical middle class Iyengar family in Mylapore, the fifth child and fourth son in a family of nine children. His father, with his limited means, could only assure them three square meals a day and a decent education.

While Chari was the favourite of his grandfather, his grandmother would tease him about his inadequacies arising out of his being mildly dyslexic. Chari says, “It was this constant comparison between me and my brothers that sowed the seeds of an angry young man in me. I was determined to prove to the world what I am capable of.”

Fortunately, when the family moved to Tambaram, he joined Corley High School where the headmaster discovered that not only was Chari a good student but the tall youth was also good in sports.

Encouraged by the headmaster, Chari became a popular sportsman, winning prizes in high jump and becoming captain of the school volleyball team. Chari also realised during school days that he was good in Maths and Science subjects.

“My success in sports and the recognition I got because of it changed the attitude of my family towards me. My family members stopped teasing me. I was now even more determined to prove to them that I was different from others,” Chari recounts.

When college education beckoned, there was an initial hiccup that stalled his admission. But he was later admitted to the College of Engineering, Guindy, where he fared well in his studies as well as in sport.

What he calls his third break in life came. When he could have got a job in a well-known company with a starting salary of Rs. 700 a month like his other classmates, he listened to his paternal uncle R. Narasimhachari, a Company Law consultant then, and joined the Seshasayee Group to train as a manager.

His uncle was confident that Chari would do far better working with S. Vishwanathan, the group’s director. When Chari protested that the starting salary was only Rs. 150 a month, his uncle told him, “Fortune sometimes comes in the form of a devil. If not accepted it goes away as an angel”. So Chari joined the Seshasayee Group as an Apprentice Engineer in 1961.

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At Seshasayee’s, Chari found a great mentor in H.K Ramaswamy, the Technical Director of the company. Impressed by his hard work (Chari often put in 20 hours of work a day), Ramaswamy encouraged him to excel by providing all kinds of incentives.

Chari’s reputation as an engineer who was also a super salesman brought him quick recognition in the company. Promotion followed promotion and in 1972 he was appointed Chief Technical Commercial Manager. The year before, he had married Rangi, from Bangalore. Within two weeks of his marriage, fate again intervened to change the course of his life.

Chari was requested to attend a Foundry Exhibition in West Germany followed by a 30-day trip to Europe to explore a possible collaboration to make the hardware for insulators used in Electric Transmission Systems. During his trip Chari struck a deal with an Italian company, but on his return to India he found to his dismay that the Management had decided to drop the idea of expansion.

Not one to accept defeat, Chari requested the management to allow him to try his luck with the new project. The management agreed – and also allowed him to continue as a Commercial Manager with the company until he could stand on his own in his business venture. Chari could have his cake and eat it too!

Along with his brother Gopal, who by then had also passed out from the College of Engineering, Guindy, Chari launched his own company TAG Corporation with a factory in Chromepet. The name TAG is an acronym of the first letters of Thiruvenkatachari and Gopal, his youngest brother, who has been a pillar of strength to Chari in all his business and other social causes for the last 40 years.

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Around the time Chari started his business, the Electricity Boards in the country were planning to move from 220 kV to 440 kV system and were looking for companies which could provide them with the hardware (which at that point had to be imported) required for the changeover. The UP State Electricity Board was the first to decide on the new system.

TAG managed to get a small order worth Rs. 6 lakh, which was only 10 per cent of the total order. But the quality of the items manufactured by TAG had the UP State Board placing further orders. “In the early years I was extremely lucky to get good orders purely based on merit. No other considerations came in the way of the bureaucrats deciding in my favour,” Chari recalls.

The next big thing to happen at TAG Corporation was when it developed an import substitute item for 4R Dampers, with half the weight and price of the imported item. Soon Chari was the uncrowned king in the manufacture of 4R Dampers, a crucial item required by all Electricity Boards. By that time he had also cut his umbilical cord with Seshasayee group.

Chari started seeing big money and, instead of just hoarding it, he decided at the young age of 40 to share his prosperity with society. From being a successful businessman, Chari was on the road to becoming a generous philanthropist.

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When I asked Chari, which was the first act of charity he performed, he recalled the advice he had received from R.P. Iyer , the then Chairman of the Killicks group, who had once told him, “When you are doing well, first take care of your near and dear ones before you look beyond to do social service. If every successful businessman does this, the country will take care of itself.” So, for Chari, ‘charity began at home”.

He decided to persuade, cajole and if necessary help every one of his siblings to acquire a house of his or her own. Beyond the family, the first act of charity he performed was to donate Rs.10,000 to Corley High School, to be given to the best sportsperson of the school. Then followed donations to medical institutions, like the VHS Hospital.

While Chari continued indulging in such generosity, an incident in his personal life completely changed him as a person and the direction of his philanthropic activities.