Chennai loses a beloved brand

by Sushila Ravindranath

The recent announcement from Amazon that it is going to shut down its Indian subsidiary Westland Books was a total shock. Amazon had acquired the publishing house five years ago and the general impression was things were going well. Westland was Chennai’s own success story. It is a Chennai icon although it was no longer a Chennai company.

The publishing industry is centered in Delhi. Those publishers are not easily accessible to many talented writers from the South. Westland was a sanctuary for such authors, from the days it was East West Books.

Westland has had an interesting journey. Its founder K.S. Padmanabhan (who is no more) was a book industry veteran and a book lover. Journalist/author Bishwanath Ghosh called him Chennai’s book man in one of his columns. Padmanabhan family too is passionate about books. Chandra Padmanabhan, his wife, a director in East West, is a cook-book writer and his son Gautam, managing director of Westland has grown up with books and publishing.

Padmanabhan moved to Chennai in 1975 when he was distributing books, mostly academic text books with his partner in Delhi. Business expanded to include fiction and other general interest books. The company forayed into publishing as well. By 1990 after an amicable settlement, the Padmanabhan family took over the Southern side of the business under the title East West Publications.

Padmanabhan started a bookshop, ‘Manas’ in Teynampet. Unfortunately the shop did not do well. The location proved to be wrong. It had to be shut down. But Gautam, his son, spent a summer holiday helping out and knew he had to be in the books business.

The brief foray into retailing led to the company publishing books under the Manas imprint. First works and translations of distinguished well known writers such as Gopal Gandhi, Mahesh Dattani, Zai Whitaker, Sundara Ramaswamy, Ambai, Paul Zachariah, and many others were brought out by Manas. Says Jayanthi Ramesh, who has had a long association with East West, “Padmanabhan had an instinct about books. He knew which would do well.”

Madras Discovered, Chief’s (S. Muthiah) best-seller was first published in 1981 by East West. By this time Padmanabhan and Muthiah were close friends who would do many things together to promote the city and books. Madras Discovered became Madras Rediscovered and eight editions have come out. It is the definitive book on Madras, that is Chennai, and remains a blockbuster.

It is Padmanabhan who persuaded our current editor V. Sriram to write a book on musicians. Carnatic Summer, an engaging biography of 22 leading lights of Carnatic music came out in 2004 and has remained an ever popular best seller. Thus began Sriram’s writing career.

The Padmanabhans gave time to many potential writers, supported quality writing, and were unfailingly helpful. They were willing to meet couple of my young friends, Bishwanath Ghosh and Baradwaj Rangan, now East West authors.

In the early years of 2000, East West was enormously helpful when I was putting together the books section for New Sunday Express. My happiest memories are dropping by their office, being surrounded by books, discussing ideas, having lunch, and leaving with couple of the latest murder mysteries.

Padmanabhan played no small role in making Chennai book centric. He and his friend Muthiah, started bringing out the Indian Review of Books in 1992. This was a much loved literary magazine. It attracted the best of writers and editors. My father S. Krishnan, was a regular contributor. When I was asked to do a review, I remember feeling truly honoured. When IRB had to be finally shut down in 2001, Shashi Tharoor bemoaned the fact that india’s best literary journal was defeated “by the mathematics of the market.”

East West and Muthiah together started the Madras Book Club twenty years ago. It is a forum to bring publishers, writers and readers together. The books were not restricted to just East West publications. Book club meetings are conducted each month and they are one of the most popular, ‘you have to be seen there’ events in the city. Authors from all over the country have been invited to promote and talk about their books.

Another Chennai icon, the Landmark bookshop, entrepreneur and book-lover Hemu Ramiah’s brain child, was the first large format air-conditioned retail space for books in the city. East West and Landmark started working together. Gautam recalls how his father recognised the potential of this venture, while many others were sceptical. Gautam helped stock up this large shop.

Eventually a joint venture was set up between Landmark and East West called Westland to bring books from the US to fulfill a huge demand. This was going to bring about many changes.

In 2005 the Landmark chain was acquired by Trent, the retail wing of the Tata Group. Trent also chose to invest in Westland, and as its infrastructure was run by East West, it decided to acquire East West as well. The two companies were merged to form a new entity, Westland Ltd.

Westland was encouraged to focus on the publishing business. It saw many successes bringing in most popular writers like Ashwin Sanghi, Amish Tripathi, Rujuta Duwekar among others. It was a very successful phase for Westland.

When Trent wanted to exit book retailing, Westland was approached by Amazon, talks began, and Westland became a subsidiary of Amazon five years ago. The publishing business appeared to be flourishing under Amazon. Gautam built up a great team, and expanded into new genres, by launching new imprints for literary fiction, children’s books, translations, sports, and business.

There must have been ups and downs. But one did get the feeling that things were going well. What made Amazon take this decision? Strange are the ways of multinationals.

Still we hope that this is not the end. That Westland will manage to rise from the ashes.

Please follow and like us: