Connection of Joy
A talk with Mr. R. Suresh about life, good times and the importance of connecting
by Aniket Tamboli
To call Mr. R. Suresh an enthusiastic man would be a slight understatement; and to say that he leads an exciting work life that most people only crave for, would only add to that understatement. A man of several words and even more actions, Suresh has come a long way from being an advertising person to currently being the owner of two cafes and a design studio — places that will leave anyone awe-struck thanks to the creativity that everything in theseplaces oozes. Whether it’s the computer desk made from an old Royal Enfield Bullet 500, a work-desk made from the front of a Mahindra ‘jeep’, or even the Piku-clock (more on that later!)
The creative abilities that led to all these creations dawned upon Mr. Suresh when he started working in advertising. A Kerelite by origin and a Bengali at heart, he’s always craved a creative outlet for the plethora of ideas within him, and another one for the Kolkata foodie within him. These cravings led to the opening of two ventures that have today made Suresh & wife, Sonali, whom he gives a lot of credit to all along, the happy and enthusiastic couple that they are — the cafes (Indiranagar & Vignan Nagar), called The Kitchen of Joy, and the design studio, called AppleGreen Creative.
Suresh sees Kitchen of Joy, or Kolkata Kitchen as it was earlier known, as a business of convenience. It is most easily accessible to people near the outlet. And hence, it becomes really important for him to connect with everyone around him to showcase the exquisite cuisine he brings to the outlets.
AppleGreen, on the other hand, has reach far and wide in the country. One of Suresh’s latest creations at AppleGreen that has made him a celebrity is the Piku-clock. Anyone who has watched the movie is well aware of the uniquely themed story and Big Bachchan’s throne that is the answer to all his gastric problems. So much was Suresh stricken by the representation of this chair in the movie that he decided to create a miniature version of it and make a clock out of it. A simple and genius creation if you look at it from a merchandise-perspective.
As the story goes, a friend in Kolkata, on seeing the clock, asked to be sent a model, which he then sent to Mr. Shoojit Sircar, the director of Piku. In a matter of hours, images of the clock had gone viral; with Suresh being none the wiser about this fact. How? Mr. Shoojit Sircar put put up a picture of the clock on Twitter. BigB fell in love with it and put it up on his social-media platforms and suddenly, everyone wanted the clock — including Mr. Bachchan himself! While you’re reading this, Mr. Bachchan is a proud owner of the Piku-clock, and Mr. R. Suresh, a local celebrity who now spends a good portion of his time at Kitchen of Joy with customers-and-fans asking for selfies with him & the clock.
It is wonderfully inspiring what connecting different people can lead to. Whether it’s the connect between Suresh and arguably the God of Bollywood himself, or even the connectedness that Suresh shares with the people around him in his cafe, or his life. His cafe, he says, has been a host to many such connections — people flock there for the classic Kolkata Katti Rolls and that perfect cup of Lebu Chai, and over these take form a lot of new friendships, a lot of new connections.
These connections are at the epitome of important things in Mr. Suresh’s life — a fact that is clearly supported by the collage of “people that matter the most in his life”, stuck on one of his office’s walls. According to him, it is these people that have gotten him where he is today.
At HereNow, we believe in the importance of connectedness — connecting with new people, and that going beyond the comfort zone of only those you already know, is vast & potentially capable of taking any one of us places. We also strongly believe in enabling people to connect with each other, giving people an opportunity to interact with strangers for purposes that are beneficial to themselves as well as the entire community in any given part of Bangalore — or heck, even the world! Whether it’s finding someone to assist you with your creative project, taking opinions on something, or even connecting with new people in your locality, HereNow promises to take connectedness a step further and into unexplored territories that lay beyond the realm of people you already know.
Kitchen of Joy — as Suresh has found a way to put it — is an adda. And so is HereNow, an adda, a digital one at that perhaps.
In this series, “Connect,” we bring to you stories of stars from right around you, the (hyper-)local superheroes, who are helping in one way or the other build a strong community around you.
Aniket is a pirate with HereNow, who keeps our community ship sailing.
