Location

At the crossroads of arguably, two of the busiest roads in K. K. Nagar, is located a small row of bunk shops or bunkplex, which to a stranger is yet another of its kind in this big city of Chennai. Nothing really special is offered here that cannot be found elsewhere. Yet it was special in its own right.

The bunkplex comprises of four shops :-
* A tea/petty shop - that changed several hands and finally ended up with Cheta.
* A real estate cum old-paper mart - run by Annachi Veluchamy
* A cycle repair shop - owned and managed by Kabali
* A motorcycle repair shop - propreitor Madhi is all in all here.

Adjacent to this, is a PCO/STD/ISD shop which came in to the picture a little late.

The place was affectionately called "Three Star"although till day I don't know why three. Probably because Annachi held the stakes of the tea shop at some point before Cheta took over.

No other street corner, in entire Chennai if not India, offered such a variety to consumers in less than 200 sq ft of business space. To manage all this in such a small area required leadership and great management skills. And Annachi was no chicken at this.

Although, he did not train in any business school or for that matter any school, he somehow had it in him to marshall his fellow shopowners and lead them, the right way (Annachi Vazhi). Madhi and Kabali automatically accepted him as their master and so had to Cheta with some hesitation. Hailing from Kerala, Cheta found it difficult to adjust to Annachi's management style (Annachi Bani). But sooner than later he had to follow suit to survive.

To an onlooker who does not realise all this, it is just a bunkplex. But for those of us who frequented the place, it was a school that taught us about business, art of warfare, justice, leadership and social service - all these blended with humour and fun that will go to challenge the best of the schools.

To cite a few examples, Arun Narayanan who helped Kadai Saravanan in the procurement of Pan Parag, cigarettes and other products from M.G.R Nagar went on to become an M.B.A. Senthil who was witness to Annachi's katta panchayathu became a lawyer. Balaraman, Bingu and Kunju took up CA- purely impressed by Annachi's business acumen - not to forget is Iyan's BCom along with Aiyer Balaji. Jingli, inspired by Kabali and Madhi became a mechanical engineer . Raman, Bharath and Jackie looked up to Cheta's quick calculations and enrolled in Mathematics. Kaushik inspired by Cheta's other skills signed up for Caternig. Kadir, took to sociology only after being witness to Annachi's service oriented life. To most of us this is where our journey began.