BPL returns: The legacy of an iconic electronics brand all set to invade your home again

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At the peak of its success, in 2002, BPL sold well over a million television sets across India. Having dominated the market through the 1990s, the Bengaluru-headquartered electronics company wasn’t just selling television sets and refrigerators but also a host of other products like medical equipment, music systems and home theatres.
“We sold everything then,” says Ajit G Nambiar, Chairman and Managing Director of BPL, and son of its founder TPG Nambiar. Sitting next to him in the large conference room at BPL’s HQ Dynamic House in Church Street, is his colleague Manmohan Ganesh, a General Manager at the 53-year-old company. Manmohan, endearingly called Manu, is quick to rattle off a long list of products the company made during its halcyon days ranging from vacuum cleaners and photocopiers to gas stoves.
That’s right, BPL made gas stoves. “It had the perfect blue flame, which meant complete combustion of the gas. It was the best,” Manmohan recalls with a glint in his eye, adding wryly that housewives however looked at the perfect blue flame with suspicion, “They were used to the imperfect yellow flame."
As Ajit looks on with his gentle smile, Manmohan explains the perfection of BPL’s products with child-like excitement.
“We were the first to introduce the concept of door-to-door salesmen for vacuum cleaners in the country,” Manu says with a hint of pride. “So you were the guys who unleashed those men on us?” I ask, as the room cracks into laughter, and Ajit puts his hands up says, “Guilty as charged! And that wasn’t the only first, we did a lot of firsts.” 
And that they did. According to the company, BPL was the first in the country to introduce a wide-screen TV, 3D TV and PC TV. BPL was the first to bring the VCR to Indian homes, also the portable CD player and alkaline batteries. They brought the home-theatre to our living rooms, gave our kitchens the frost-free refrigerators and launched the first non-chlorofluorocarbon (CFC ) compressor. “You see these ads claiming to be the first fridge with a freezer which can be converted to a fruit-vegetable compartment? Well, we did it in 2000. It was called a Converti. We were way ahead of the curve,” says Manu, “We were even the first to come up with the idea of a rat mesh below washing machines.”

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