100 Years
100 Stories

This story reveals Bharat's first product catalogue from the 1920s, when the company first established itself in Mumbai, gradually reducing and eventually replacing the much more expensive imported Minton Tiles. The catalogue had been an essential part of the customer experience when everyone from Maharajas to the architects of British Institutions rifled through the pages of the catalogue to find the perfect floor that catered to their whims and fancies. One finds illustrations of geometric patterned cement tiles available in a myriad of colours. It also provides a fascinating history of the tiling industry of the 1920s and of marketing and sales in an era when companies did not demarcate budgets for them.