Monday morning and a great majority of folks would be getting ready to go back to their workplaces after the weekend break. A little over 2,000 such folk are employed by this firm, Rane Madras Limited, part of the Rane Group. Not all of them would be entering this gate on the Velachery Road, because this is only one of the 5 units of this company. I will wager that even those who do take only a cursory glance at this sign at the gate; they have been seeing it for years, and very little would have changed about it during that time.
Rane Madras Limited is the flagship of the Rane Group. It was in 2005 that this company became a subsidiary of Rane Holdings Limited, and then became a public listed company. The 'original' Rane (Madras) Limited was set up in 1929; it needed the city's name in it because there was a Rane family of Bombay who were also shareholders in this venture. We shall keep the story of the group's history for another day, because for now, I would like you to take a look at this sign.
It is fairly obvious that a change in the city's name does not need every institution which has 'Madras' in its name to modify that to 'Chennai'. Continuing to call this firm Rane (Madras) Limited is therefore the right thing to do. And yes, all the signs have to be in Tamizh as well, so that is fine, too. In 1978, the Tamil Nadu government had simplified the script to standardize the ligatures of some syllables. The new - in 1978 - way of writing "Madras" was மெட்ராஸ்; but in this sign, you can see that it is written as மதறஸ் (with a twist, that I'm unable to replicate, on the second letter, to signify rā), the way it would probably be spelt in Tamizh of Singapore, Sri Lanka or Mauritius!
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