Did you know that the first indigenous Printing press - Quality Printers, and the first Hot Metal Type Foundry, Gujarati Tupe Foundry at Gaiwadi, Girgaon, Mumbai were started by Manilal Modi in the year 1893.
I believe a majority of you guys are aware of only Gutenberg and Hiedelberg as all the printing magazines around the globe only talk about them, but none of our own kith and kin who were instrumental in starting this industry here which produces one of the best prints at a miniscule price available at the other end of the globe. So here’s presenting our piece of Indian print history…
While researching on the Indian printing industry, I came across Pinak Modi (the son of Narendra Modi) who dabbled with Advertising till a decade and half back. Now also an actor and a writer, he belongs to the one of the founding printing families of
It was the envisionary Chhaganlal Thakordas Modi who envisioned the need for bringing and indigenizing Printing and also saw the need for a proper research into Indian languages and Scripts so as to enable making of the printing types possible. His research inspired his son Manilal Modi to study Indian Languages and he was the one who found that every letter in the Devnagari Alphabet was assigned to a Swaroop of Maha Saraswati. He compiled these to form the modern day Devnagari Type Forms.....!
Continuing in his research to contribute to the print industry in a big way, Manilal Modi even traveled to
It might be interesting to note that, it was Chaganlal Modi's brother, Maganlal Thakordas Modi who started the famous M. S. University of Baroda for Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad. He also donated his own residence and its surrounding lands to
A rare family picture in Black & White, it has (From Left to Right) Surendra Manilal Modi, Chhaganlal Thakordas Modi and Manilal Chhaganlal Modi. The kid in the picture is Narendra Surendra Modi. The colour picture is of Pinak Modi..
