CHENNAI: After a century of golden bliss and four years of careful planning, Vummidi Bangaru Jewellers’ second store in Chennai was inaugurated by R P Sarathy, former chairman of the Narasu’s Group of Companies. Highly regarded for having breathed new life into the Narasu’s coffee company in 1966 Narasu’s Sarathy, as he is popularly known, was full of admiration for the array of gold that greeted him at the new VBJ store in Anna Nagar.
As he was shown around the 4,300-sq foot showroom it was evident that the entrepreneur, who has shifted his entire focus towards education, was bedazzled by the sheer variety of gems and designs in the store. The founder and chairman of Narasu’s Sarathy Institute of Technology in Salem, he apparently made it to Chennai bright and early on Wednesday to ensure the inauguration took place on time. It couldn’t have been a better way to begin, as family and friends of V Raghunath came in droves and purchased gold, almost as if Akshaya Tritiya wasn’t over.
After the jewellery house’s flagship store on Anna Salai, this is their second outlet in Chennai and has been built just off Anna Nagar’s II Avenue – as enviable a location as any hallmark business house can hope for. “We have been planning this very carefully and felt that this would be the best location as it is an upcoming area. Our quality is something that is well known, so we are confident that we will be able to serve people from this side of town very well,” said V Raghunath, who started the first store in 1981.
With an entire floor dedicated to gold and another one divided among silver, diamond and platinum, the store features trays of bangles of all sizes, intricately designed necklaces, diamond rings and earrings as well as silver collectibles. Jithendra Vummidi and Vummidi Amarendran, who are joint managing directors of the family-run jewellery empire, were also present.