Of dreams, movies, gold and dust: The rise and fall of 'Atlas' Ramachandran

In the 1970s and 80s, there was a ‘Gulf wave’ that swept across Kerala. Thousands of youngsters wanted to migrate to the Gulf countries, hoping to make it big. The idea of a big job was getting one in Dubai or some other Gulf country.

Among them, there were many with big entrepreneurial ambitions. There were stories of both success and failure.

Ramachandran, who hailed from a sleepy village of Thrissur in Kerala, was one of them. On October 1, he died in a Dubai hospital following a heart attack. He was 80.

Though he gained wealth and popularity in later years through his gold jewellery business in the Middle East, that’s not where he started his professional career.

A banker touches gold

His first job in the Middle East was that of a banker in 1974 at the Commercial Bank of Kuwait as International Divisions Manager, with the responsibility of the bank’s operations in London and New York. That was a few years of working in India across different banks.

But destiny had planned something else for the young Ramachandran who was in his early 30s then. After a few years in the Kuwait bank, Ramachandran took his plunge into the gold jewellery business by launching the ‘Atlas’ brand in 1981. This later grew into his biggest venture.

The business picked up pace in no time, and, at its peak, it had over 50 stores across the Middle East. Later, Ramachandran expanded his business to two hospitals, real-estate ventures, and, finally, film production. That kind of growth made him one of the leading business icons in the Middle East. Many considered him as the next MA Yusuff Ali, another big name in business in the Middle East, from Thrissur.

While his growth as a business industry icon came in a short period over a few years, the downfall came sooner.

Also read: NRI businessman, actor and producer, ‘Atlas’ Ramachandran aced several roles

The cookie crumbles

The growth also presented many challenges to Ramachandran. Overleveraging led to a financial mess in 2015, and a clutch of leading Dubai banks moved court seeking legal procedures following instances of cheque-bouncing.

Ramachandran was arrested that year and sent to jail, where he spent the next 35 months. Banks wouldn’t let legal hooks off Ramachandran till he paid back. In 2018, he agreed to pay by selling his priced assets–his jewellery showrooms and two hospitals across Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar to raise funds.

The business empire crumbled and never really recovered since then. Ramachandran’s business rivalry with another powerful Malayali industrialist in the Gulf is also said to have worked against him.

How it happened

At one point, Ramachandran’s business empire was worth $1.1 billion. The fall of the group came all of a sudden.

In one of his interviews to a television channel in June 2018, Ramachandran said the issues leading to his arrest began with the delay in just one payment to one of the banks.

“Once the problem starts, it goes out of hand,” he said. Ramachandran said he was forced to give a blank cheque to a bank as guarantee, which was later executed. Soon, other banks, too, joined the case and he was caught in the middle of bitter legal proceedings.

“I was cut off from everything and my business collapsed in the UAE,” said Ramachandran. “There was no one to manage my business. I had no one with me at the time of difficulty but my wife. But, that’s how life is. When you are in a crisis, no one will come to your help,” Ramachandran said in one of his interviews. The businessman spent his jail life reading books and listening to the radio, visited only by his wife.

"I trusted people too much. I delegated to my managers things I should have attended myself. But good that I have learned that lesson, at least now," the businessman told Khaleej Times in a June 2018 interview.

His plight at that point reminded one of the characters he played in a movie called Arabikatha as ‘Coat Nambiar’, a struggling Keralite in Dubai who could never move out of his packed labour camp but refused to let go of his coat (suit) at all times.

The cinema connection

But Ramachandran was a lot more than a regular businessman. For Malayalees, the name ‘Atlas Ramachandran’ was a part of Malayalam cinema too. He was also a film producer and artist who worked in iconic films. The 1989 Malayalam movie Vaishali that Ramachancran produced was a trendsetter in Malayalam cinema.

He also produced a raft of movies like Vaasthuhara, Dhanam and Sukrutham. Ramachandran also acted in 13 movies and directed one. The movies in which he acted include Arabikatha, Malabar Wedding and Harihar Nagar-2.

He was his own ambassador for Atlas group advertisements. Ramachandran’s famous advertisement tagline janakodikalude vishwsthasthapanam (trusted enterprise of millions of customers) gained much popularity in Kerala and Dubai among customers.

This expression also found popularity among comedy shows where artists mimicked Ramachandran’s style.

Ramachandran’s humble start and fall is a story stranger than fiction.