MAVOOR: Oru Deshathinte Kadha - Vol. I

This is version One-Dot-One, added some essential links. As always whenever you read something that you have written long back, you always get the feeling that "how can I write so stupidly". But then I didn't make any modifications to the original post.

Thudakkam:

Rewind back to the end of 1950's... a time when the world saw that communism can indeed come to power through ballot. A great visionary became the chief minister and some path breaking decisions were made. One among them was to invite some of India's corporate big-wigs to invest in Kerala. And, perhaps the only time in the history of "united" Kerala, some of them actually came forward and invested some big money. And the biggest by far was the Birlas and their GRASIM.

Tucked away in the banks of the most beautiful Chaliyar, 20km away from the heart of Calicut city, bordering Malappuram, was a small hillock called Mavoor. This was the place that the Birlas chose for their Pulp and Fibre factory. Mainly, because of the plentiness of water, closeness to Nilambur - from where the facory will get all its wood and bamboo, and lots of uninhabited free land. Work started towards the end of 50's continuing through the early 60's. Being the first pulp and fibre factory (technically speaking, first Rayon grade pulp and viscose staple fibre (VSF) factory) in the country, Birlas got world class engineers from Sweden and Norway to supervise the construction. The earliest employees where Keralites who were working in the steel plants of north (Bhilai, Durgapur, Rourkela etc), lured here by the handsome salary and a chance to work so close to their homes.

As my Valiachan(one of the earliest employees), often recounts, it was a tough task. First there was no proper road connecting Calicut city and Mavoor. So the Birlas had to first built that road. And thus came into being, which is still, Calicut's most important and busiest road... the Mavoor Road. Next, there were something else to take care of... Snakes!. There were lots of them, if the ones on the ground were not enough, snakes of all sizes and shapes flowed in through the river. I remember, my Valiachan telling how they all had to wear huge boots to avoid snake bites!

Production started in 1963. By then, Grasim was one of the most important firms in Kerala. These were the best paid jobs. Best technicians and engineers of the land were here. Everything went very well for the first 20 years. There was a saying that, the merchants in SM Street will wait for the day when Grasim will pay out the bonus. Not only the pay, the employees got some excellent perks as well. State of the art clubs-houses and play grounds. Free water and electricity (so much so that every household used only electric heaters for cooking ... Nobody cared for gas). Bus sevices to fetch their children to the colleges in the town and back. And not to ever forget, one of the best schools in the entire district. I believe we were one of the first people in the entire state who watched cable TV!. Mavoorians were one privileged lot...And arrogant too in that. Maybe god was watching this arrogance!...

go to ... PART II, PART III