We finally visit the printing plant (and the home upstairs) of a young man we first met thirteen years ago when we held the IPP2 Conference in Mumbai. We have not come a moment too soon, and are moved by Maharashtra’s print legacy embodied in this family’s methodical pursuit of technology and excellence, writes Naresh Khanna

Like many of the leading offset printers in India the story of K Joshi and Sons spans several generations and a strong connection between the family’s village and the big city in which they settled 95 years ago and have built a print business for more than 70 years. In many cases, there is a great contrast between the slow growth of the first 60 years and the fast growth in the last ten, and then quite often, spectacular growth in the last three or four years. As the Indian economy achieves consistent GDP growth rates of 9 per cent, the printers who have acquired both computer to plate and a brand new multicolour offset press are growing even faster at more than 20 per cent each year.

The K Joshi and Sons story is more appropriate for a novel than an industrial recounting of a print business. The family comes from the village of Dhome about seventy kilometres from Pune, near Satara in the interior of Maharashtra. It was started as a letterpress block making business in 1937 by Govind Appa Joshi and named after his cousin Keshav Joshi who helped him with a financial gift after he learnt and practiced the trade for 25 years in Chitra Shala.

The Chitra Shala press pioneered colour printing in Maharashtra. Its owner Vasukaka Joshi was a print pioneer and a social worker. It was with his help that Govind Appaji left Dhome in 1912 to settle in Pune and apprentice in Chitra Shala. Vasukaka’s son Rambhav Joshi had spent eight years in Germany and came back in 1920 not only a master colour separator and block maker but also brought with him an Ilford gallery camera. It was Rambhav Joshi who mentored Govind Appaji till he left Chitra Shala in 1935 and was able to start K Joshi and Sons in 1937.

Govind Appaji established K Joshi and Sons on Laxmi road and then in 1947 moved to Deshmukh Wadi. Here he built his own wooden gallery camera for creating halftone colour separations and ventured into letterpress block proofing and printing as well. In 1958 his son Ratnakar Joshi took over the business and moved it to the current premises right in the heart of Pune with the press on the ground floor and the family living upstairs. Ratnakar Joshi also became an expert colour separator and pioneered the use of powderless etching techniques for halftone blockmaking. Visiting Japan in a printers’ delegation from Pune, he saw a Japanese-made powderless etching machine, applied for an import license, and installed it in 1972. The blockmaking and letterpress printing business grew with more automated machines till 1980. “Our main interest was to print colour,” recounts Ratnakar Joshi. In 1983 the firm employed 50 persons, and imported a Heidelberg SORM-Z 2-colour offset press.

In 1989 while still in college, Ratnakar’s son Anil brought in an Apple Macintosh and DtP to the prepress side of the operation. He joined full time in 1991, the year that India’s economic liberalisation began, and in 1995 attended two important events. One was drupa in Dusseldorf and the other event was the Second IPP International Conference in Mumbai. It was here that he decided that he must have a drum and not a capstan imagesetter if he was to provide high quality colour separations. His first Scitex drum imagesetter came in 1996, and subsequently he bought the first Eversmart Pro scanner in the country.

Like his father and grandfather, Anil Joshi has became a master colour separator, printer, technician, and print business owner. Moreover, he has had the advantage of not only a great legacy but also of coming to age in a digital era that has coincided with the prosperity of a rapidly growing Indian economy.

The last part of this story is simple. Anil Joshi is committed to buying only new machines. Apart from numerous imagesetters, he bought a new Polar cutting machine in 1999. In 2003 a brand new Mitsubishi Diamond 1000 press 28-inch press was ordered and it was installed in 2004. The rest is history. A brand new Kodak Trendsetter with the latest Prinergy and Adobe print engine has just been installed and it is ready for 40-inch presses.

Productivity
K Joshi and Sons is proof that the modern Indian printers are among the most efficient in the world. Recently they printed 52 sets of colour plates in 20 hours for a steel company brochure and they would have done more but the job was finished. There is no dearth of work in Pune, which is at one end of an industrial megalopolis extending from Mumbai, the financial capital of the country. There are steel, engineering, and automobile companies galore on this continuous stretch of 250 kilometres and many more modern manufacturing plants coming up in the region. Pune itself is an important software and educational centre. Needless to say the Mitsubishi Diamond 1000 press runs 24/7 and in just two years K Joshi has already repaid the loan it took for buying it.

Anil Joshi like other fast growing printers who have bought new presses is now very committed to expansion of his bindery and finishing operations. He is also committed to growth and although his property can be built on further, it is just too valuable for this purpose. He will most likely have to invest in a large plot of land outside the city that can accommodate a modern purpose built plant so that he can take the equipment decisions that he is so keen on.

K Joshi and Sons are a testament to the idea that technology is a great leveller. Adopting modern technology and business practices go hand in hand. They quickly transform stagnant or threatened businesses into thriving and fast growing ones. Anil wishes that he had bought even more automation but he was being financially prudent when he bought the Diamond 1000. He is very clear that his next press will be a 28 x 40 inch 5-colour press with coater with full automation. The only issue is how fast can he build a new and large enough plant to house it and the postpress equipment that he has set his heart on.