Saturday, August 28, 2004
Kuttyjapan
Nehru reportedly called it mini-Japan -Sivakasi, the city of matches , fireworks and offset printing .80% of the matches produced in India come from this place. A very interesting story is told about the origin of the Shivakashi enterprise . A Nadar boy, studying for his exams in a Madurai library chanced upon the formula for making matchsticks at home .He immediately informed his brother and uncle at Shivakashi inducing them to go to Calcutta to learn the technique so that they could come back and start the cottage industry of match-making .The boy , accompanying the other two, died of cholera on the way to Calcutta but the other two returned duly educated . Their first enterprise (some time in 1920 or thereabouts )was the forerunner of today's flourishing match industry .A very interesting thing was this new industry was just the thing needed at that point of time when this area was reeling under successive onslaughts of famine. There was no looking back after that for Sivakasi which later developed its own printing industry as an offshoot of the match industry which needed printed labels. Today in both match and fireworks industries as well as offset printing Sivakasi holds a preeminent position . ¶ 2:29 AM
Nehru reportedly called it mini-Japan -Sivakasi, the city of matches , fireworks and offset printing .80% of the matches produced in India come from this place. A very interesting story is told about the origin of the Shivakashi enterprise . A Nadar boy, studying for his exams in a Madurai library chanced upon the formula for making matchsticks at home .He immediately informed his brother and uncle at Shivakashi inducing them to go to Calcutta to learn the technique so that they could come back and start the cottage industry of match-making .The boy , accompanying the other two, died of cholera on the way to Calcutta but the other two returned duly educated . Their first enterprise (some time in 1920 or thereabouts )was the forerunner of today's flourishing match industry .A very interesting thing was this new industry was just the thing needed at that point of time when this area was reeling under successive onslaughts of famine. There was no looking back after that for Sivakasi which later developed its own printing industry as an offshoot of the match industry which needed printed labels. Today in both match and fireworks industries as well as offset printing Sivakasi holds a preeminent position . ¶ 2:29 AM
