Appreciations

A warm-hearted and gentle human being of a very rare calibre who adorned Colombo city life for over seven decades passed away a few days back. Narottam Meghi Udeshi who was better known as ‘Naro’ to his very wide circle of friends was professionally, Chairman of the reputed Siedles group of companies.

Born in Colombo in 1926, Naro had his education at Royal College. Although he set his eyes on studying accountancy, he had to abandon the idea to join his father who by then was the major partner in the import /export business concern under the name Siedles. When Naro’s father passed away in 1954 the responsibility of managing the enterprise fell on him and his elder brother during the difficult period when the world was trying to recover from the devastation caused by the Second World War.

Although relatively inexperienced, Naro and the brother after years of hard work were able to gradually develop Siedles to be a leading firm mainly engaged in the import of reputed brands of radios and public address systems. Later in the mid-1960s, Siedles was granted approval by the Ministry of Industries for the local assembly of radio sets.

The MW radio which they assembled and marketed under the name ‘Vahini’; backed by a good after-sales service before long was able to capture the major share of the local market displacing the imported brands of the competing firms.

It became popular especially in rural areas. ‘Vahini’ was seen blaring out at full volume in rural tea kiosks and even in paddy fields when the farmers were at work. Naro used to happily recollect how while climbing Adam’s Peak he spotted a person half-way up the climb carrying a ‘Vahini’ set entertaining others along the journey.

Naro’s moment of glory was the eve of the 1970 general election when the company in double quick time assembled a record number of thousand radio sets and sold the thousandth set in the afternoon of the day of the election. However import liberalization measures by the Government in the post-1977 era resulted in the market being flooded with imported brands compelling Naro to wind up the local assembly operations which later included black & white TV sets in which too Siedles was the pioneer firm.

Naro had taken an active interest in tennis from his student days. Royal played only one tennis match in a year at that time which was against St Thomas’s. Naro who was a member of the Royal team in his final year was able to help Royal to defeat their rival college that year.

He won his first national trophy in tennis in 1941 as a lad of 15 yrs in the open Tennis Tournament held by Galle Gymkhana Club. Later on as an adult he was an active player in the Colombo Fort Tennis Club and was its Chairman for several years. When the Club had to be wound up on acquisition of the premises by Government, he joined the Queen’s Tennis Club. It was during his period as Chairman of the Tennis Committee, that the Club had experienced a very successful season, reaching the finals in nine out of the twelve matches played and ending as runner-up in three of them. He was Vice-President of the Sri Lanka Lawn Tennis Association for several years and ended up as its President in 1997.

It was in table tennis that his sporting skills were most displayed. Introduced to the game in 1946, he was able to clinch the national doubles title one year later. Naro’s crowning achievement was in 1949 when he won the Triple Crown by winning the singles, doubles and mixed doubles titles. He captained the All-Ceylon Team creditably from 1949 to 1956 in the All-India Tournaments which were regularly held in Colombo and different states in India.

Under his captaincy, the local team had beaten the more experienced Indian State teams on Indian soil on several occasions and sometimes convincingly such as the victory of 5/0 over Hyderabad in 1950.

Distancing himself from sports due to advancing age, Naro made himself liberally available for institutions dealing with humanitarian and social welfare work. He was a livewire of a number of non-governmental organizations engaged in pursuing goals such as good governance, non-violence, disaster relief, housing, assisting the physically disabled and pensioners.

He was very punctual and most regular in participation in them and willingly undertook whatever work was delegated to him. Very often it was the more difficult tasks which fell on him but he performed them as best as was possible and speedily, utilizing to the maximum all resources - men, material and transport at his command. It was on a rare day that his car did not do the rounds in Colombo to transport ‘to and back’ some of his colleagues for the discussions that had to be attended. Words like ‘impossible’, ‘difficult’ or ‘later’ were never in his vocabulary.

He talked less and worked more unlike many who have specialized the other way. He had a very soft heart and his purse opened readily to assist the less fortunate in society, maintaining anonymity in all acts of munificence.

Naro was most concerned about death and destruction continuing in the country and was yearning for the day when all citizens would begin to live amicably irrespective of their ethnic backgrounds in the way they used to when he grew up.

It was this genuine concern that induced him and several others to set up last year a centre in memory of Mahatma Gandhi to spread the gospel of non-violence and the idea that goals could be achieved more by peaceful means. He was chosen as Chairman and CEO of this new body as a fitting tribute to the dedication he displayed. Many were the programmes he had in mind for implementation through this centre which was so close to his heart.

It is a pity that the cruel hand of death has snatched him before he could implement them. Sri Lanka is certainly poorer without him.

A humble man whose versatility touched many lives