Carlyle D' Silva was born and brought up in Race Course. His father S.D' Silva had served in the army during the second world war and later on he moved over to the customs department . The mother Betty D' Silva had been a teacher at the Stanes Anglo Indian High School. Cedees Pujak & Co is being managed by Carlyle ( Carl ) for the last 47 years. He has been the sole proprietor of the iconic music store since 1971. This music store is perhaps among the oldest of its kind in our country
Carlyle D' Silva was born and brought up in Race Course. His father S.D' Silva had served in the army during the second world war and later on he moved over to the customs department. The mother Betty D' Silva had been a teacher at the Stanes Anglo Indian High School. Cedees Pujak & Co is being managed by Carlyle ( Carl ) for the last 47 years. He has been the sole proprietor of the iconic music store since 1971. This music store is perhaps among the oldest of its kind in our country
The lover of music was full of jest while sharing details about his business cum passion from his residence ' Cedees Villa ' in Race Course, " The firm Pujak & Co was founded in the fifties of the twentieth century by three partners - Purushottam ( PU ) of Kerala, Jagannath Alva ( JA ) of Karnataka and Kuroshi ( K ) of Bengal opposite to the Dhandumariamman Temple on Avinashi Road. Basically the combination of the first alphabets of the name of the founders was rolled and made into the name of the firm. They were into steel furniture and music was their side business.
The company was the ' All India Distributor ' for the gramophone needles made by Needle Industries. Kuroshi was a marketing person and he left the business in about a year or so. Alva used to run the business as the Managing Partner while the wealthy club going and car owning Purushottam was the investor. The partners of Pujak used play tennis with my father Stanley D ' Silva at the YWCA and therefore had become his friends. Jagannath Alva began to imitate the posh life of Purushottam by becoming a member of R.S.Puram Club and his lifestyle pulled the firm down eventually.
The business was run by Alva and he began borrowing money from my father. Finally Pujak became an empty shop and Alva did not have any money to do business. It was at this time that Purushottam walked out of the business.Therefore he requested my father to pay a goodwill and take over the shop. My father was a Government servant and therefore he was not in a position to do so. He requested Alva to sell the firm and settle the dues. This did not happen. This was going on when I was about to become 17 years of age. My father felt that I should take over the firm and become a businessman.
However my grandmother and mother felt that I should complete my engineering programme and take up a secure job. We used to discuss this subject everyday at a time when my father was working in Tirupur. There was a day when I went to and forth twice between Coimbatore and Tirupur in order to carry the brainstorming forward ! Finally it was decided that I should take over Pujak and this happened on 6/11/1971 - the day I became a major. I became the sole Proprietor and have been so since then. "
Senior D ' Silva had already lent Rs.30000 to Alva and he fished out another Rs.20000 as good will. It was a big amount those days. He gave Rs.10000 for the business and about half of it was used to deck up the store while the rest for used as the working capital. The firm became CEDEES PUJAK & CO after the initials of Carlyle D ' Silva and the members of his immediate family - Charmyne ( wife ), Calvin ( married and doing logistics business in Sydney ), Cerah ( married and living in Canada ), Carlson ( doing his masters in supply chain management and he stays with his brother ).
Carl began by selling HMV record players and records ( LP - Long Play and EP - Extended Play ). The shop used to sell SONY Black & White television sets for sometime. " I used to have service technicians with us and the shop was a source for some imported music equipment which was mostly Japanese. A number of people who travelled abroad provided excellent equipment made by well known companies like Akai, Sony, National Panasonic, Hitachi, Pioneer etc., Higher end stuff like NAKAMICHI was made available on order.
The customers used to lap up this high quality stuff. I remember selling a large number of National Panasonic 543 sets. It was a bit hit. These music systems were part of the hand baggage of travelers. I used to sell a number of radios and two in ones to my customers. We sold an LP was Rs.49 in the year 1979 and now an imported LP costs a whopping Rs.1200. All my customers were music lovers. I had a good clientele at all times. Shekhar Viswanath of R.V Jewellers, Suresh of K.R & Sons Jewellery, Prema Kandaswamy, D.Prakash of the P.A.Raju Chettiar family and the great music lover R.Baba Chandrasekar were my well known customers. I used to watch a number of Tamil movies as a youngster and it has really helped me in my business. Business was good and I made good money. Much more than what an engineer could earn those days and dad had been right in this regard." stated Carl.
The business moved over to East Ponnurangam Road in R.S.Puram during the year 1993. Carl has been a music expert. He has continuously updated himself over the years. Carl has put in long working hours for the shop used to be open from 9.30 AM to 8.30 PM. Carl has preserved a lot and his collection includes a number of valuable LP records and cassettes. He has customers who still listen to music from their cassette players and he helps them to maintain their systems. Carl has complete knowledge of equipment, music, names of brands, every model and every variant. Music has become his passion and he does not have any regrets for having been an engineering drop out. Carl became a DJ on going to R.S.Puram. Nowadays he is a DJ in the Vivanta by Taj. Tennis was at the Officers Club. His range of music extends from the mid sixties of the last century and still he gets complimented by a number of customers visiting the Taj.
Carl recalled an interesting incident while sharing his experiences, "People call me a 'proprietor of music' simply because of my exposure over the years. Be it English, Hindi, Tamil, classical or any other joner I can provide the music. Nearly 25 years ago one of my customers asked for ' BREAD '. He thought that I would tell him that I sell music but I told him that it was available and sourced it for him. Bread was the name of a music group. He was simply taken aback. I have seen generations of music lovers and listeners. Its been a nice experience."
The owner of Cedees Pujak & Co can be called a music encyclopedia. The family hails from Mangalore and Carl is supposed to know Kannada, Tulu and Konkani. He used to spend his Christmas and summer holidays in Mangalore. The three languages used to picked up by him and they were only to be forgotten on reaching Coimbatore ! His mother had done her education at St.Francis convent and had briefly run a boys hostel at home when Stanes had shut down the boarding facility those days. Kamalam Venkataswamy Naidu ( Radhakrishna Mills ) and Chandrakanthi Govindarajulu ( PSGR Krishnammal Institutions ) had been good friends of Betty D' Silva. The nice and cosy home belonging to the D ‘ Silvas had been built by Carl’s grand aunt Miss Peters who had served as a nursing superintendent. The home is serene and contains nice images of Lord Jesus Christ in the company of fine music . He keeps himself updated with the latest trends while storing the past experiences. His recall is vivid and its interesting to chat up with him on music.
Carl was enthusiastic to share one of his recent experiences, " I was requested to be a DJ for a wedding reception at Taj. The son in law came to know about the programme and had wondered if I could deliver good music. He had visited the Vivanta by Taj a few days before the reception with his friend. He heard the music that was being dispensed by me and liked it a lot. On learning that I was his reception DJ, he came over to appreciate me. There can be no greater compliment. I simply love music and will try to give the best. I take this oppourtunity to share some of my experiences. Those days it was ten years of LP records, 10 years of cassettes and then CD's came in.
Now we have pen drives and other stuff. Quality is the crux when it comes to the music lover and it has to be backed by domain knowledge. This aspect helps people like me to continue with work. The change or transition is quite fast now and one has to resolve to live with fast paced change. The oldest in Mumbai was Rhythm. Times are changing and therefore skill has to move on with the times while one is still being passionate about the work. If one can take this challenge , work will be a pleasure." Well said Carl. From ' Marudamalai Mamaniye Murugayya ' to the latest in western, Carl is a real master and there is much to learn from him. Be it western classical or Hindustani or Carnatic, Carl has a way of getting the best. Nowadays the lover of music is into concerts and has worked on a few of them already.
The Sound of Music from Cedees Pujak & Co owned by Carlyle D ‘ Silva is sure to make life memorable, sweet and enjoyable for Coimbatoreans.