The Sona Story: The Textile to Tech Journey of Chettiar Industrialist C. Valliappa

From the Chettinad village of Poolankurichi, where his ancestral home Lakshmi Vilas still stands resplendent after a centennial restoration, to the software corridors of Sona Towers in Bengaluru, Valliappa’s journey traces a compelling arc of transformation. Born into the illustrious Nagarathar (Nattukottai Chettiar) tradition of banking and trade, Valliappa evolved from a textile magnate to a tech ecosystem enabler and educationist, helping script India’s IT and skill development stories long before they became buzzwords.

Story of Reinvention

Valliappa’s rise began with the resounding success of Valliappa Textiles, one of the most productive cotton yarn mills in South India. As an energetic young leader, he chaired industry associations like FKCCI, and gave voice to entrepreneurs. Yet, labour unrest and punitive tariff regimes forced a shutdown of his flourishing textile empire. Undeterred, he repaid every debt in full before pivoting to IT and eventually, during the COVID pandemic, ventured into real estate again at age 75—building the Sona Vistaas township in Bengaluru.

The book opens under a banyan tree—a motif that also symbolises the Sona Group's logo. The banyan’s branches and aerial roots become a metaphor for Valliappa’s own growth—grounded in tradition, expansive in reach. It was in Sona Towers, built by him on Miller’s Road in Bengaluru, that Texas Instruments set up India’s first offshore development centre in the 1980s. This building, supported by a custom wind map, hosted global pioneers like Oracle, Cisco, and Titan, incubating India's early tech dreams. The now-iconic image of a bullock cart hauling a satellite dish to Sona Towers says it all—India was leaping from agrarian past to digital future.

Chitra Narayanan’s narrative, informed by extensive interviews, personal anecdotes, and rare archival images (many accessible via QR code in the book), is intimate yet structured. Chapters like The Nagarathar Way, Vyaparam, Seeding Knowledge, and Dharmam provide insights not just into a man, but into a business philosophy rooted in social responsibility. A striking story describes how a Chettiar woman, after haggling with a vegetable vendor, offered her a meal worth more than the discount—underscoring the value Chettiars place on fairness and compassion.

Sona's Education Institutions

Two full chapters are devoted to Valliappa’s contributions to education—particularly through Thiagarajar Polytechnic College (started in C Rajagopalachari’s home in 1958), Sona College of Technology and Sona College of Arts and Science, the 47-acre green campus is now home to over 12,000 students across disciplines, including AI, Machine Learning to Mechatronics and Fashion Technology in addition to the core engineering subjects. The book highlights how Valliappa waived over ₹5 crore in student fees over the years, encouraged his son Chocko Valliappa to created an assessment-linked placement platforms like HireMee, and led his institutions to become national exemplars, with ISRO powering many of space forays with its SonaSPEED motors.

Religion and ritual are equally central. His belief in structured giving is evident in the Dharmam chapter, where he’s seen feeding stranded travellers and creating pilgrim facilities on factory campuses.

His passion for Tamil literature and architecture—from quoting Thirukkural to repurposing teak pillars from Poolankurichi into furniture and jaali work at Sona Towers—is beautifully integrated. Even the ceilings in his conference rooms speak the language of cultural continuity.

In the Foreword, TVS Motor Chairman Emeritus Venu Srinivasan calls Valliappa’s life “a story of perseverance, resilience and boundless faith.” Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani praises him as a “critical pioneer” of India’s IT ecosystem, while Bhaskar Bhat, former MD of Titan notes how his “reasonable negotiating style” and “unusual philosophies on life and work” set him apart.

This is no run-of-the-mill rags-to-riches story. It is a biography of business reinvention and community leadership—relevant for B-school students, policymakers, educationists, and anyone interested in understanding how regional enterprise fuels national progress.

The book closes with 10 life mantras distilled from Valliappa’s journey—simple yet profound lessons on resilience, dignity, risk-taking, and the art of giving—making this not just a biography but a guide to graceful leadership.

With its evocative prose, rich cultural context, and rare archival photographs, The Sona Story is a refreshing addition to the sparse shelf of Indian business biographies. And much like the banyan tree at the entrance of Sona Towers, it leaves the reader with a sense of rootedness—and a call to reach wider.