Ritu Nanda has reason enough to smile. Rimari, her wholesale art company, has a turnover this year that crosses a crore, with projects worth Rs 50 lakh spilling over into 1999. Nanda has picked up franchises to sell paintings in Dubai, Lagos and the big one London. After six years in the business, shes managed to set up offices in Mumbai and Dubai. Several foreign affiliates have joined hands with her to sell top-of-the-line prints of works by painters in the west on a commission basis in India. And did we mention that she has exclusive licence to sell M F Husains prints in India?
Nandas corporate philosophy comes in byte-sized chunks. Her USP: Give value for money. Her expertise: Zilch. Her idea of satisfaction: Cheap thrills. Her secret sorrow: Why dont people forgive me for my past mistakes?
Before this starts reading like a scene from vaudeville, perhaps you should think about Nandas greatest asset the bit she wont put into words. Even when she thinks that art is pfaff, what Nandas really good at looking at is the many colours of money. Serving as a buffer between artists and buyers, she managed to push Rimaris turnover from Rs 25 lakh in 1991, the year the company was set up, to Rs 1.56 crore in 1997-98. The timing of her venture has been as perfect as you could get. With corporate offices continuing to slap on the paint, undeterred by the economic downslide, Nandas cashing in on this mini-boom for all shes worth.
The nonstop buzz in her office testifies to the volume of work Rimari handles. Nandas clients include Hotel Leela Beach, where shell be supplying roughly 2,500 paintings, and continues into a mini-directory of hotels. Theres the Holiday Inn, Leela Kempinski, Marriot, the Oberoi group, Park, Park Royale, Chola Sheraton in Chennai, the New Delhi Hotel (formerly known as the Hilton), the Richmond International in London, Chhada Seimbieda in Hong Kong, Wilson & Associates, Parkview Holiday Inn in Singapore, and Hotel Crowne International in Dubai.
And her office, which is a tapestry of canvases with over 15,000 pieces in stock from mixed media, monoprints, miniatures to meenakari, can now be seen on the Internet with a collection of 600 visuals of little known artists at http://www.gen.com/rimarinet. Our aim is two-pronged. To give the artists the power of signature and to provide them a source of income, she says.
Instead of waiting for months on end to get a booking at a gallery, artists who sign up with Rimari have a chance to paint and sell without putting their signature on the altar of criticism. Nanda has about 150 painters across India under her wing who sell their works for a price of Rs 300 upwards and make Rs 6,000 to Rs 10,000 a month at an average.
Balvinder Kaur of Faridabad tired of making replications of old classics and shifted to Rimari two years ago. She now makes between Rs 8,000-10,000 a month depending on the volume of work she produces. Nandas office faces a constant influx of artists whove travelled from various corners of the country armed with dozens of canvases and hope. Often, they end up returning with orders to paint more after being carefully instructed in whatevers the flavour of the moment. After buying the paintings from the artists, Rimari takes on the task of mounting them and then reselling them. The resale price is roughly at Rs 500 per sq ft for paper and Rs 1,000 per sq ft for a canvas.
Although we have fitted into a niche we continue to look at art dispassionately, explains Nanda. Here we give wings to artists, the power of signature as well as a source of regular income. But we have certain no-nos guidelines about what we wont take. For instance, we dont accept over-arty, grey gloomy pictures.
But the world hasnt always looked on Rimari through rose-coloured spectacles, and once in a while, Nandas gullibility has led to embarrassing situations. A few years ago, she commissioned a reproduction of Husain without reading up on the subject of art copyright. Then one day, a reporter called to ask if we were reproducing Husains. I replied, Yes, with pride. The next day, there was a story slapped on the front page with Husain delivering an absolute tirade against me. I flew down to Mumbai and instantly apologised. He understood and offered himself to make us his agent to sell prints.
But the memory of the bad press rankled, and now Nandas not taking chances. Husains certificate appointing them as legal sellers through her Uchini Graphics company, which was merged with Rimari India Ltd this year, hangs in her daughter Natashas office prominently. I make no claims to infallibility; and I am willing to learn from mistakes, says Nanda bluntly.
The story behind the business sounds almost too good to be true, though. It all begun when some of my women friends hijacked me. They took me to an art gallery, and said that with your stature and background, you must invest in art. Nanda invested Rs 25,000, threw together a staff of six people and provided a house and found herself in the business of being a catalyst for artists. It was all done quietly; very quietly. No marketing and no hype.
She had received an earlier lesson in the problems of growing too fast, too soon. Following the failure of the Nikitasha kitchen appliances venture that she had churned out from her husband Rajan Nandas Escorts factories in Faridabad, the backlash was severe. The company fell flat in 1988 after riding on a crest of Rs 25 crore turnover in 1985. The reasons cited embraced bad management, and a rate of growth that was so fast that defective items languished with dealers for months on end.
Too much happened at the same time. And then the floodgates of liberalisation opened, she frets. Imagine youre driving down the Faridabad road. One side is UP and the other Haryana. I turned to UP instead of Haryana, which came up with factories selling products at lower prices. We had to bury her overnight. I have offered a settlement with Canara Bank and even filed a suit against the bank for not clearing the case, but I dont understand why they dont want to.Why are they punishing me? she sighs
For four vacuum-filled years after the traumatic experience of Niky-tasha, she went into relative hibernation. She settled down to write a book on her father, actor Raj Kapoor, then went on to become a leading LIC agent until she was shanghaied into the business of art.
My experience has not gone to waste. And work gets us more work, she says, stoically denying the charge that shes just a high-society lady playing businesswoman. She hesitates before she says she is 49 but Business Today magazine puts her as 1946 born.
In her workroom, where half a dozen LIC trophies stand proudly on top of her cabinet, she enthusiastically leafs though files that list new projects. Her manicured hands send out the wrong message: Ritu Nanda loves the nittygritty that her work demands. Im going bananas with the volume of work but I am still misunderstood. The emerald and diamond studded ring on her finger winks at the pale cream vase by the tableside.
