By Savita Bhave Translation Nandu Dange

He was firm on the principle that quality is the ultimate goal. He made it apoint to take up challenging assignments that nobody else would touch, andcomplete them successfully.In a period when Kirloskar engines were denied ISI certification, Menon’sadaptation of the Lister - Petter engine, which he had designed on his own,not only received the certification but was also a major success in the market.Menon was skilled at identifying and developing talent. Bhupal Mestry was aconstant companion. For several reasons, mainly financial, things did notalways work out as Menon had planned. Thus too much planning could not beundertaken, and production targets at times simply meant fulfilling the order athand, a truck at a time – but never at the cost of quality. He would prefer lateshipment to the shipment of a shoddy product.Around this time, Menon’s brother-in-law Kartikeyan came to Kolhapur.Menon had a fond dream of getting his whole extended family together.Kartikeyan was a senior executive of twelve years’ standing in the importsection of Premier Automobiles. Every visit to Mumbai saw the two brothersin-laweating out together. At each meeting Menon pursued the idea ofKartikeyan starting out on his own; there was also an open invitation to joinhim. But Kartikeyan had made up his mind that it would not be appropriate towork for his brother-in-law, besides he was happy with his work at PremierAutomobiles. He finally succumbed to Menon’s continued insistence that hegive up the job and start something on his own. Even when Kartikeyan agreedto Menon’s suggestion – at the back of his mind was the conviction that hecould get a similar assignment any time he wanted. Menon had assured himof all-round support in any venture. Menon gave him a used lathe, offloaded agood bit of job work and sub-contracted to him some of his engine partrequirements. Kartikeyan however was not as ambitious or adventurous asMenon, but he settled himself very well in the venture with Menon’s support.The industry he started is considered to be a model, well managed, smallscale enterprise.Menon’s Udyamnagar workshop soon turned out to be too small to meet theincreasing requirements. Menon was already using the Kadam and Ruikarpremises. Earlier in 1962-63, Menon and his industrialist friends like Y PPowar and Vishnupant Utkur had already acquired a large plot of land inVikramnagar. Menon had procured 8 acres of land – a size which wasconsidered superfluous at that time. Menon however worked towards a longterm plan and knew precisely how he would use the land. In time he not onlyfully utilized this land but he also had to buy 214 acres of land at Amboli tomeet his growth requirements.The award that Menon’s Ruston engine crankshaft had won in the AgriculturalTrade Fair resulted in a flood of orders for crankshafts and liners from Rustonand Cooper. To meet these growing requirements Menon built a large factorybuilding at the Vikramnagar premise and the operations were shifted toVikramnagar on January 19, 1964. Menon also continued the earlier operationin the old place in the name of Menon Ancillaries.