Down the Ages: Rooted in Rituals, Three Generations Built and Continued the Cycle Agarbathi Business

Around the time his first son was born in 1942, 30-year-old N Ranga Rao jotted down a simple goal in his diary: to build a business in a big city that he could one day pass on to his child. That quiet resolve laid the foundation for what would become an over ₹1,100 crore diversified family-run enterprise with interests ranging from incense to defence and aerospace.

“That was 82 years ago,” the son—R Guru—says reflecting on the journey. “That’s the kind of determination he had.”

It all started in a rented house in 1948 in Mysuru that served both as a home and workspace. “We paid ₹16 as rent,” recalls Guru. “During the day, it was our workplace. At night, it was where we slept.”

Before moving from Coorg to Mysuru, Ranga Rao had tried selling several products including chocolates and talcum powder but stuck to incense due to its high value per pack. He zeroed in on what would become Cycle Pure Agarbathi. The brand name, Guru says, was chosen “because everywhere in India, in any language a cycle is a cycle”.

Baby Steps

Even as a child, Guru was exposed to the rhythms of the small enterprise. “After school, my sister and I would help pack agarbattis,” he says. His informal involvement in the business became formal when at 15 he was asked to quit studies and join. “My father had cardiac problems. He asked me to join because we had a big family—seven brothers and two sisters. I could not complete my education,” he says.

As each of the brothers finished their education, they joined the business. Within a few years all the seven brothers had joined the family business. It was in the 1970s when the growth phase of N Ranga Rao and Sons took off.

However, around 1985–86, the family decide to split. While Guru, RN Murthy, R Vasu and R Sridhar stayed in the agarbatti business, R Krishna started an IT business, R Venkatesh runs a successful restaurant with three branches in Mysuru and the youngest R Mohan started a bulk pharma chemicals manufacturing unit.

“We thought one can’t keep cutting the same cake into pieces. It’s better to bake a new cake. We separated our businesses. So, our group—N Ranga Rao and Sons [NRRS]—became smaller in size,” Guru says.

Of Gods and Men

Today NRRS has over 350 brands of agarbattis though Cycle Pure remains its flagship brand. Aren’t agarbattis passe? “No,” says Arjun, Guru’s nephew. “As long as religion is there, gods are there, prayers are there, agarbattis will be there. But then you don’t want to become ‘the brand your grandmother used to use’.”

So, keeping pace with the times NRRS diversified its portfolio. It now offers a bouquet of fragrances to its customers including aroma candles, vaporisers, reed diffusers, fragrant sachets and sprays, potpourri, sambrani (also known as dhoop), puja material (in packs), puja essentials (such as various oils, turmeric, kumkum, Ganga water etc) puja accessories (jhoolas, agarbatti and tealight holders) room and car fresheners, personal care (including sanitisers, soaps, deos and perfumes).

Didn’t Covid hit the business? “Actually, we saw a spike in consumption of agarbattis and home fragrances as people were indulging in meditation and various forms of aromatherapy,” says Arjun.

The increase in the number of temples, the rising number of pujas and rituals, and the incline in religious tourism have also contributed to the growth of the industry.

Cycle Pure has 1,300 sales representatives, reaches 8,00,000 retail outlets and exports to 78 countries. They run on SAP HANA data base, have carbon-neutral operations and push for constant product innovation.

Cycle Pure Agarbathi posted a revenue of ₹1,147 crore in 2023–24, and is one of the largest players in the market, where it has about 40 active competitors, according to Traxcn, a data platform.

Change of Guard

NRRS is now helmed by the third generation—Arjun (51), Pavan (49), Kiran (48), Anirudh (41) and Vishnu (41). Like the incense brand, the holding company has also diversified. While Arjun is the boss of Cycle Pure Agarbathi, Pavan runs Rangsons Aerospace, Kiran Ranga is the managing director at Ripple Fragrances, Anirudh heads Natural & Essential Oils and Vishnu Das Vasu heads the agri-tech vertical Vyoda.

All cousins are also partners at NRRS.

“The second generation prepared us not only to take on the responsibility of the business but also in managing the family business,” says Arjun. He explains that the third-generation members were given financial independence early on. When they turned 18, part of the ownership was transferred to them from their fathers, which he pointed out is rare in many family businesses—a clear sign of trust. The third step was independence in decision-making.

“Together, these three—financial freedom, ownership and managerial responsibility—formed the foundation of succession in the family,” he says. In addition, Arjun and his cousin Pavan were also sent for formal training in 1997 to a Harvard family business programme to understand how to navigate through the maze of generations and branches.

“One important point for our successful transition was the presence of a patriarch. My father [Guru] truly played the role of a patriarch. Whenever there were differences, or whenever there was any lack of clarity, he stepped in and took a stand. He was helped by his brothers [Murthy and Vasu],” says Pavan.

The third generation also broke away from traditional hierarchies. “We never appointed a single chairman. Leadership rotates,” Arjun says.

While the third generation were exposed to business early and were groomed to join the family business after studies, they started out not at the helm but building the businesses like a start-up. “I started out with two small legacy brands—Sugandha Mallika and Natya Kesari. I scaled the business from ₹40 lakh to ₹2.5 crore. Then it merged back to the main brand,” says Arjun.

According to him, initially, Pavan and he felt challenged when they joined the business because the second generation would never give them money. “We had to make presentations detailing how funds would be deployed. They treated it like a start-up. That taught us the importance of cash-flow management,” he says.

Carrying on the Legacy

For the third generation, the challenge now is to inspire the next generation to join the family business. While their fathers and uncles were able to bring them into the family business, Arjun feels they need to work towards inspiring their children to return and work in a family enterprise. “Today they have other options...They are smart. Pavan’s daughter completed industrial design from New York’s Parsons School of Design and my son is now studying brand design in the US. Inspiring them to come back is something I would want to take responsibility for,” Arjun says.

While Arjun and Pavan’s sisters and their aunts received shareholdings and wealth-creation options, they never had the opportunity to join day-to-day operations. “For us to remain relevant, our daughters and sons are equal—both have equal opportunity to join the business, with shareholding and managerial roles. We’ve made that clear,” says Pavan.