“We grow men”, was the simple but confident response of Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle to a question by his American philosopher friend Ralph Waldo Emerson who asked what they grew in the stony and barren countryside of Scotland. In an unlikely ground of a terribly poor, physically filthy and crime-prone community in Nagpur, three brothers grew without getting affected by the surrounding squalor, under the protective umbrella of parents’ high sense of morality, ethics and self-worth to create a very promising and dynamic brand of ayurvedic and herbal products that have taken the larger society by surprise. ‘Vithoba’, the symbol of achievement of the three Shende brothers -- Manish, Kartik and Sudarshan -- as a brand, is growing at a rate that is simply amazing. As the three brothers made ‘Vithoba’ the brand and its products grow in leaps and bounds in much less than two decades, they also offered a combined leadership to the people in their enterprise and larger family to help them also grow beyond imagination. “We make men realise their worth”, says Mr. Kartik Shende, the second of the three brothers, as he ponders over the role they play -- of course besides building Vithoba’s brand equity.

 

It is not without reason, therefore, that the Vithoba products are capturing the market’s imagination, thanks to the highly talented team the enterprise has developed over time. “Our people are our strength. They give strength not just to the products but also to the larger society in different ways”, says Mr. Sudarshan Shende, the youngest of the brothers, while talking about what entails his role as a leader. In the words of the eldest brother Mr. Manish Shende, leadership means “making everybody like you”. These three expressions embody the overall culture of Vithoba. The joint leadership the brothers offer has produced the Brand Vithoba and its aura in a short while. It is one of those brands of which the city of Nagpur should be very proud. The Shende brothers, all Directors of the enterprise, have worked tirelessly to carve Vithoba’s brand image nationwide. The products were first introduced in the urban market of Nagpur, but spread very fast in the semi-urban and rural Central India. Today, in just a few years, Vithoba has already become a national brand standing equal to -- or even above -- the competition. So good has the quality of Vithoba’s dental care products been that the company proudly announces itself as “Repairers of teeth”. There are other products, too, that have carved a niche for themselves in a highly competitive personal care market. Vithoba’s quality speaks for itself. And the visitor to the company’s speck-clean, well laid-out premises in Hingna Road Industrial Estate gets hooked on to the place in no time. “This has been our main purpose while creating these wonderful, clean, healthy premises where we work for hours on end, days on end, months on end, years on end. We must feel fresh and committed to the task,” says Mr. Kartik Shende.

 

The inspiration, the spur to create such premises is from the childhood years in Nagpur’s Tandapeth area, known for every possible wrong thing. Yet, even in those horrible conditions, the Manish-Kartik-Sudarshan threesome enjoyed wonderful parental protection from all bad things around. With father Eknathrao having only Rs. 60 as monthly salary, the family of parents, three brothers and two sisters needed some more financial support. That was when Mother started a grocery shop that grew through thick and thin into a community landmark. The Shende brothers’ entrepreneurial instinct came from the mother who was a determined woman of genuine substance. When Kartik was a teenage boy, she launched another grocery shop for him to be run independently.

 

The family business was expanding and the customer-base, too, grew to a healthy size. Then came Mother’s illness that led to closure of the satellite shop. But the family realised that such setbacks were ‘normal’ in life, and all of them focused in the family business that was beginning to do better. Of course, all the while, the family with five growing youngsters lived in a 450 square-foot cramped house with little to show as facilities or amenities. No matter all the difficulties, the brothers were not the ones to stagnate only in the shop. So, they started another business from home -- making, packing and selling of washing powder, dalia, salted peanuts, and potato wafers. “It is thought that makes man. Our thought was simple -- we must keep working the hardest and on a wide range of products. In the shop, we were learning practical lessons of business -- in which ethicality was the most important input. Father worked tirelessly and most ethically to earn customers’ trust.

 

That became the backbone of our thought,” says Mr. Kartik Shende. But as life unfolded opportunities for them, the three brothers realised that they did not have the time and the facility to pursue studies beyond 12th standard. “In life’s school, we were being educated. We were lusty about learning new things, new skills -- which included communication skills, convincing skills that helped in marketing of our products, leadership skills that helped us in building our great team at Vithoba”, says Mr. Sudarshan Shende. As his two younger siblings speak out their minds, the elder brother Mr. Manish Shende watches smilingly, approvingly, admiringly. But this admiration is absolutely reciprocal for the brothers, with visible respect for ‘Manishbhau’ -- who is made to sit in the high-back chair while Mr. Kartik Shende and Mr. Sudarshan Shende stand as they pose for a picture of the three Founding Directors. The brothers operate from separate rooms of their own, but are often seen huddled together for discussion -- which is often interspersed with laughter. While running the grocery shop in Tandapeth, the brothers started making dant-manjan (dental powder) and selling the merchandise in small, unlabeled packets. The experimental product started selling well, and the threesome decided to start making and marketing it on a larger scale. “We used to get some products from Nepal to be sold in our shop. We wondered, if ‘Made In Nepal’ products can sell, then why not the one Made in Tandapeth? So, we decided to give it a try. Around the same time, we also decided against taking up employment. We would work for ourselves, we decided,” says Mr. Sudarshan.

 

That was a major decision. And then came along another major move -- to a hired factory in Nagpur’s Jagnath Budhwari area. That facility was doing well for a little over a year when it had to be pulled down for the road-widening project. “That was a shock to us, but we had to move out again. So, we found an abandoned factory in Vaishali Nagar area and managed to purchase it despite terrible financial crunch. In good faith, the original owner handed it over to us -- for which we kept paying for some time. In a few years, we grew so much making the dental powder that we had to acquire a 10,000 square-foot plot nearby for expansion. We also moved our residence from Tandapeth to a better accommodation around that time”, Mr. Kartik Shende adds.

 

The enterprise moved to the current premises in 2016 -- from when on there has been no looking back. Vithoba has been a success and has been recognised not just as a product brand but also as a corporate brand. Mr. Manish Shende takes care of overall management. Mr. Kartik Shende takes care of the ever-expanding marketing challenge. And Mr. Sudarshan Shende takes care of production. Today, Vithoba has a range of 8 high-selling products: Vithoba Ayurvedic Dant Manjan; Vithoba Premium Herbal Toothpaste, Vithoba Rootfix Natural Toothpaste; Vaijayanthi Handcrafted Saffron Soap; Vithoba Ayurveduic Kesh Tel; Vithoba Keshratna Hair Colour; Vithoba Keshratna Mehendi; and Vithoba Liquid Handwash. Time and again, during extended time of interview, the brothers’ minds dart back to the time at Tandapeth home when their parents often joined in ideation. “They never said ‘no’ to us for anything. They encouraged adventure, experiment, entrepreneurship. They were old-style people with an ultra-modern outlook. They are our eternal inspiration,” Mr. Manish Shende says -- showcasing their sanskaar, their traditional core, their experimental culture, and their modern outlook.