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It was 1963 when a small optical shop called Ajanta Optical opened in Gulmandi, then the heart of the city. Nilesh Deshpande’s father stood behind that counter, and the business he started went on to shape the whole Deshpande family, binding four generations of its families to them through their spectacles.
Ajanta became an evening gathering spot for the neighbourhood’s senior citizens, as much for the elder Deshpande’s company as for what he knew about optics. Nilesh grew up in that room, learning to keep in touch with each new generation of customers. When his father fell ill, he set aside a place at the National Defence Academy and took up the counter instead.
Then he began again from nothing. In 2003, with no capital of his own but with his father’s name behind him and the backing of people his father had grown close to, he opened Om Optical in Osmanpura. It was a modern store built around something the city had not seen before: computerised eye testing on an autorefractor, and the international houses of frames and sunglasses on the shelves beside it.
Examine properly, fit properly, and stand behind what you sell.
A second showroom followed at Connaught in 2008, and a third at Sutgirni Square in 2015. Minal Deshpande, a fashion designer by training, has run them alongside Nilesh since 2006. Between them they carry more than three hundred brands, some imported directly from Paris.
Six decades on, the order of things holds. Someone still goes to a senior citizen’s door rather than asking them to travel. And the costlier lens is still not the one you are sold when a simpler one is right.
My father’s hard work has led me to this success today. … Our customers from Pune-Mumbai and even those who have relocated to other countries come back to us when they need sunglasses or specs and that is our success.
Interviewed for Generation Next, Icons of Aurangabad, Lokmat.
Ajanta Optical opens in Gulmandi, then the heart of the city. Nilesh Deshpande’s father is behind the counter.
Nilesh opens Om Optical in Osmanpura. Computerised eye testing and international houses, new to the city at the time.
A second showroom opens at Connaught.
A third follows at Sutgirni Square.
An Essilor Expert practice, four generations in.
