A Angamuthu introduces himself in the past tense.
“Once upon a time, I was an exporter,” he says, with wistfulness on his face.
The founder of Abi Mithra Apparels, located in India’s knitwear capital of Tiruppur, in Tamil Nadu, has a rags-to-riches story.
He rose from being a textile worker to a manufacturer. Abi Mithra, which has been renamed Abi Creations, once clocked annual revenues of Rs 100 crore.
Rags-to-riches is a familiar theme with many entrepreneurs in Tiruppur. Lately, though, fortune has been flowing in reverse, thanks to the pandemic, the war in Europe, and the resulting disruption of demand