Smells Like Success

From agarbatti to aerospace, N Ranga Rao and Sons has come a long way. And now the third generation is at the helm of its various businesses

- Yuthika Bhargava

Around the time his first son was born in 1942, 30-year-old N Ranga Rao jotted down a simple goal in his diary: to build a business in a big city that he could one day pass on to his child. That quiet resolve laid the foundation for what would become an over ₹1,100 crore diversified family-run enterprise with interests ranging from incense to defence and aerospace.

“That was 82 years ago,” the son—R Guru—says reflecting on the journey. “That's the kind of determination he had.”

It all started in a rented house in 1948 in Mysuru that served both as a home and workspace. “We paid ₹16 as rent,” recalls Guru. “During the day, it was our workplace. At night, it was where we slept.”

Before moving from Coorg to Mysuru, Ranga Rao had tried selling several products including chocolates and talcum powder but stuck to incense due to its high value per pack. He zeroed in on what would become Cycle Pure Agarbathi. The brand name, Guru says, was chosen “because everywhere in India, in any language a cycle is a cycle”.

Baby Steps

Even as a child, Guru was exposed to the rhythms of the small enterprise. “After school, my sister and I would help pack agarbattis,” he says. His informal involvement in the business became formal when at 15 he was asked to quit studies and join. “My father had cardiac problems. He asked me to join because we had a big family—seven brothers and two sisters. I could not complete my education,” he says.

As each of the brothers finished their education, they joined the business. Within a few years all the seven brothers had joined the family business. It was in the 1970s when the growth phase of N Ranga Rao and Sons took off.

However, around 1985-86, the family decide to split. While Guru, RN Murthy, R Vasu and R Sridhar stayed in the