Mysuru is just 140 km southwest of vibrant and chaotic IT hub Bengaluru, but even today evokes nostalgic memories of a bygone era. It reminds most visitors of a Bengaluru of yore, with tree-filled avenues, broad roads, evening cultural activities, and a calm, orderly life with a relatively sparse population and traffic. Living up to its ‘heritage city’ tag, it retains the old-world charm that its neighbour has lost due to unbridled expansion and growth.

The largest private sector business to have emerged out of the city is the ₹2,000-crore — in annual revenues — NR Group. We are in the city to meet with Arjun Ranga, the third-generation scion steering the fortunes of the group, which is into everything from agarbattis to aerospace engineering.

NR Group has interests in six core areas. Agarbatti (incense stick), perfumed candles and other fragrance-related business through N Ranga Rao & Sons; natural and essential oils through NESSO; high-tech engineering through Rangsons Aerospace & Defence; lifestyle and air care products through Ripple Fragrances; Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence through Rangsons Technologies; and healthcare and education via TMS Neurocare.

NR Group’s stature as the largest industrial house headquartered in Mysuru owes to the vision and hard work of N Ranga Rao. The group patriarch laid a solid foundation and built an enduring value system, which has shaped, and continues to guide its success.

Steady pedalling

Arjun Ranga, Managing Director of N Ranga Rao & Sons, decides to meet us at a business centre of the Radisson hotel, located centrally. For at least two weeks in a month, he is on the road, meeting clients, visiting manufacturing facilities, monitoring supply chains and identifying emerging trends in the group’s areas of business interest.

Which is why he laments the lack of flights from the small Mandakalli airport on the outskirts of the city. “While we have a functional airport, the frequency of flights leaves a lot to be desired,” he says. However, he is quick to add that the group would continue to be based out of Mysuru, in spite of the temptations of Bengaluru.

Understandably there is pride when he speaks about his grandfather. Born in 1912 in Madurai, which was then an extended part of the royal Mysuru State, Ranga Rao had the misfortune of losing his father when he was merely eight years old.

The penniless youngster became the ‘man’ of the family, having to take care of his mother, grandmother and younger siblings. “Till then we had only priests and teachers in our lineage, but no entrepreneurs,” says Arjun.

Undeterred, the young Ranga Rao became self-taught and picked up multiple skills in various ‘trades’. There were early glimpses of his entrepreneurship, as when he bought peppermint (hard-boiled sweets) in the wholesale market and sold it to fellow students at a small mark-up, or when he offered tuitions to other kids to earn money.

He learnt to repair timepieces and read newspapers aloud to senior citizens — literacy was low back then — of course, for a small fee. Uprooting his family and moving to wherever commercial prospects took him, Ranga Rao worked at various jobs and, at the time of Independence, moved to Mysuru, which was then the seat of power, to pursue his passion for entrepreneurship.

Shikakai (soapnut) powder for hair wash, tooth powder and agarbattis were the few sunrise industries he quickly identified in Mysuru. With the first two segments having entrenched players, Ranga Rao, says Arjun, zeroed in on agarbattis. Thus in 1948, supported by his wife — who pledged her gold to form the initial capital — he launched his company, N Ranga Rao and Sons.

Even as Arjun speaks passionately about his grandfather and what his legacy has meant to the group’s current strategies, the maître d’hotel enters to enquire about our food order. Even as I opt for a mere katti roll and fresh lime soda, Arjun sticks to just a diet coke, citing his efforts to shed some kilos ever since he injured his hand playing his favourite lawn tennis. “I haven’t been able to exercise since I am yet to fully recover from my injury and have not been able to play tennis or golf, which has meant some spartan diet due to the constant travel also,” he grins.

Back to the group’s story, he talks of how Ranga Rao focused on three things: innovation, market fit and financial discipline. Back then, incense sticks used to be called ‘baalbatti’, since they were like thin strands of hair, or baal. A metal box containing 100 of these poor quality baalbattis was sold at one rupee. Ranga Rao instead offered 30 thick and good quality incense sticks that burned better and longer, packaged in paper cartons.

For product differentiation, he imported a couple of perfumery texts from France and, through experimentation, developed his own fragrances, which set his products apart. When some retailers refused to take his products as competitors offered higher margins, all he had to do was light a few of his incense sticks near their stores and customers soon began to ask for them; the retailers eventually stocked up.

Contrary to a popular belief surrounding the flagship Cycle brand, Ranga Rao did not go around selling his wares on a bicycle. “In the early days he travelled with the goods on public buses. Very early he identified the need for branding. While Ranga Agarbatti, as it was called in the initial days, was fine as a brand name, he felt the need for a universal brand. Since cycles were then ubiquitous and was pronounced the same in all languages, he registered the brand,” explains Arjun. Since then, the NR Group has quietly pedalled itself to steady growth.

The tagline of the NR, or Cycle, group is that “everyone has a reason to pray” — a self-evident truism that has served it well. Over the years, even as the group’s various members have branched into numerous other businesses, they haven’t forgotten the three pillars of success laid down by the group patriarch.

Separation is key

Nearly eight decades on, if the group has managed to weather ups and downs it is also due to its structure and how it is managed. Early on in 1952, a mere four years into the business, Ranga Rao brought in a professional manager to oversee operations. Even before concepts like core competence and outsourcing became buzzwords, the group practised it. Manufacturing and packaging were outsourced with strict quality controls. The core IP of fragrance creation and application is held internally, and Arjun himself is a master perfumer. From just a smell, more often than not he can reverse-engineer its source product.

Even today, family members try to meet at least once a month to take collective decisions with guidance from elders. Cousins have pursued individual interests, including electronic manufacturing services (EMS), aerospace component manufacturing, and production of natural extracts.

If you have used a Calvin Klein or Dolce & Gabbana perfume, the chances are high that some of the ingredients were supplied by NESSO. In aerospace and defence, the group produces high-tech components like heat exchangers, SATCOM antennas and flight data recorders not only for the likes of HAL, DRDO and ISRO but also several global OEMs. While the group has exited the EMS space, having sold a majority stake to Cyient, it still retains some interest in that space.

In neurocare, it offers treatment for neurological disorders using transcranial magnetic stimulation, under the NR Neuro Care brand, besides running a small hospital called Sitaranga. Cycle, the world’s largest incense stick manufacturer, remains the flagship. Arjun, however, says that irrespective of pulls and pressures, the group’s strength is in the third generation working together on the value system laid down by their grandfather.

For now, the NR Group under Arjun Ranga is steeped in the sweet scent of success it exudes from its perch in Karnataka’s cultural capital Mysuru.

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Published on March 2, 2026