Topan Madhavji Kagdi – Founded by Shri Madhavjibhai Saraiya, on the auspicious day of Dev-Diwali in the year 1703 A.D.. He started the business of paper and accounting books by naming the business after his 5 year old son, Topan, as Topan Madhavji Kagdi. Kagdi means the “Kaagad Na Vepari” in Gujarati and “Kaagaz Ke Vyapari” in Hindi – meaning Seller of Paper Products. Our main product was to deal with different types of papers and paper related products. In early days the business started with slate, pen, paper and pencil. Also accounting books was one of major product of the business. Specialist in manufacturing ‘Marwari’ accounting books – which would open wide upto 5 ft. We used to draw design on the cover of these books by taking stitches by hand which would depict different floral designs and specially depicting “JAM” in the books of Royal businesses. As time moved ahead, then came era of leather and padded cloth covers for the accounting books. Due to manual stitches taken in centre of the book, there was equal distribution of paper on both sides of book, but still these books when opened, will measure to 2.5 ft. wide. There did not used to be any ruling in these books, divisions were created only by manually folding the paper in equal sized columns, which would help the businessmen to keep proper recording of all the debits and credits. All these types of books were manufactured with the help of skilled labourers. There were not enough machinery to manufacture such books and so only the quality of books was much stronger compared to notebooks and registers manufactured today, in bulk.

Unfortunately, even the above type of books came to an end. Then arrived the era of compact size of accounting books, compared to earlier time and we decided to move ahead with the transition. Advanced printing started taking place with ruling printing in these accounting books. Which not only reduced the size of the books but also modified looks of the books. Businessmen from different sectors of the industries, started ordering the accounting books with us, printed with their organization’s name onto it. Still this was not the end, transition was still taking place. We started manufacturing accounting books as LOOSE LEAF BINDERS, wherein it was possible to detach each page of the book and can add extra pages in the different compartment of books, wherever more space needed. These types of books prevailed beneficial, especially for banks. Also it was approved by income tax office, so it gained more prosperity among big businessmen.

But then came the age of computers in the business and soon computers, printing papers, floppy disks, ribbons, computer files, took place of these accounting books. But we did not faced much challenge, even we thought of diversifying our business on this route. There were times in ancient era, where worshiping these accounting books on start of the business year in Diwali, was the tradition. Customers used to visit our shop, order their specialized books, get it prepared in front of their eyes and get it packed and take it to their business house only in ‘Shubh Muhurat’ on the auspicious day of Diwali or Dhanteras. But since computer software took place of these accounting books, we thought to bring innovation for our privileged customers, enabling them to maintain our old aged traditions. We introduced computer file’s with picture of Goddess Lakshmi on its first page, under the brand “Babyhorse”, to enable them to carry out their “chopda pujan”. Now after doing pujan for these files, customer’s will add their accounting printouts to these files. This was our idea to blend traditions alongwith the new technology and methodology of accounting. Apart from dealing with accounting books, we supply different types of papers for different cultural and business requirement. We have large Muslim community customer base, we supply them with different types and patterns of papers for their “Muharram festival”. We supply papers to different businesses, jewellery showrooms, mithaiwalas, kite making business, etc.

We are also manufacturing manually “Barot” chopda – the books used by special community in Gujarat, to keep record of their previous and next generations. These books are therefore to be made in such a way, that they can last for 100 years, as it would be used to record generations of the same family. It takes more than 1 month of time period to prepare 1 such book and the cost of such books starts from Rs. 5000/- upto Rs. 10,000/-, depending upon the super fine quality material – imported quality paper and its original leather cover, that our customer wants to use in this type of books, to make it last for generations.

In this way, we are privileged in running the same business, at the same location, only with different generations of our family. Three hundred years ago, this place, where the business hub is situated, was known as “Khajuriah Bazaar”. Then British government renamed it as Lord Berthon Square. After 55 years of Independence, the Jamnagar Municipal Corporation has now renamed it as “Topan Chowk”.

We are glad to announce our 8th generation, Mr. Tejas Krishnakumar Saraiya and Mr. Jatin Anilkumar ‘Anmol’ Saraiya, is trying to take this business empire to the golden era of its success. We are privileged with our years old customer base in and around Jamnagar district and also in whole of Saurashtra. We foresee that our 8th generation, will take this business not only to the national level but also on international level.

Further both the 8th generation brothers are working hard to expand the horizons of the TMK business. We have inaugurated new showroom on Pandit Nehru Marg, City Arcade, wherein you will find wide range of Stationery products for Office Use, Industrial Use, Student’s Use, Account Books, Various types of Labour Law Forms and various different and advanced stationery products.