Piyo Chai Suno Kahani
Ice Ice baby
In these unbearable days of blistering heat, here’s literally a little slice of cool history to soothe the scorch.
A beacon signalling a legacy of trust in the business world is Blue Star. The crisp 1943 logo Mohan T Advani chose for his air-conditioning and refrigeration company ensured the enterprise was not to be identified personally with him but radiate its own character. The label was intended to brand into public consciousness with distinctive form and colour. Blazoned against the sky, it sought to be pithy and recognisable. After a process of elimination, Advani arrived at “Blue Star”.
“Blue not for the icy coolness of his products but because it denotes aiming high, into the blue yonder,” explains the pioneer’s daughter Suneeta Vaswani.
Starting as a modest three-member team reconditioning ACs and fridges, Blue Star obtained sole agency of the US-based Melchoir Armstrong Dessau Company and several others manufacturing air-conditioning and refrigeration equipment. Shortly after, it was selected by Worthington, the American leader in the field, as its India partner – the first of numerous foreign associations to follow. Expanding, Blue Star ventured into producing ice candy machines, bottle coolers and water coolers, besides beginning to design and execute central air-conditioning projects.
Being a true entrepreneur of exemplary vision, MT Advani maintained scrupulous quality control. His daughter relates how close a watch he kept on the work of the carpentry contractor Sham Singh Sehra. “At the Blue Star headquarters in Kasturi Building, Churchgate, where the office furniture was made, he personally stretched the tape from one end of the 240-feet length of hall. Spotting even a bit of daylight filtering through between the tables and tape, he would tell Sham Singh it was rejected. Such was his critical eye.”
Salute to such a high standard. An over 80-year-old firm is the better for it and we are all the more comfortable.
MEHER MARFATIA
