NEWSGulf

Atlas Jewelery boss plans to make a comeback with this new plan

Keralite household name Atlas is making a fresh comeback with this new plan. Recently released M.M. Ramachandran has affirmed this as well.

M.M. Ramachandran aka Atlas Ramachandran is planning to ‘revive himself’.

The 75- year-old Atlas jewellery owner who had a chain of showrooms in the UAE, Gulf and India, had done it once in 1990 – when he lost everything and his business got wiped out during the Kuwait war.

“I will come back, no doubt about it. My business will be revived. My plan is to open one showroom in Dubai, and I will pick up from there. Atlas will soon regain its old glory,” Ramachandran, after securing his release from Dubai jail, where he served nearly three-years for loan default.

“I am a self-made man. I built up my business standing at the counter and serving customers myself when I opened my first showroom in Kuwait in the 80s and in Dubai after the invasion of Kuwait,” he said in his first ever interview with a Gulf-based agency after his release.

READ ALSO: These are the situations, helpful for the release of Atlas Ramachandran and the bail conditions

The businessman gave the interview sitting in the bedroom of his third-floor apartment, donning a distinctive Sherwani (Indian suit) and an undeviating friendly smile, Ramachandran could easily pass off as his good old self – the flamboyant businessman with a gold empire worth billions. He is hooked on to his laptop even as his phone line is incessantly ringing. He is fiddling with two or three of his old mobile phones. He has a list of visitors who want to meet him in the evening.

But the resemblance to the glorious past ends there. Much has changed in the last 33 months of his detention. All his 19 showrooms in the UAE are shut. Some of his assets were liquidated to pay off the financial obligations. His business friends and affiliates have abandoned him. He still has debts to repay. And age is catching up.

But Atlas Ramachandra has decided to hold on. He begins his battle by questioning the value of the debt itself. “The amount of the debt is highly exaggerated in some of the reports. I know better how much my debt is and I will pay it all back till the last dime,” he said without divulging the exact figures.

He has a grouch that no one bothered to ask him. “I was in detention and my side of the story was never given voice.”

shortlink

Post Your Comments


Back to top button