It was my first Publisher, Srinivasamurthy of Productivity and Quality Publishing Pvt. Ltd., who referred me to Diwakar 12 years ago. I remember visiting his office behind former CM Karunananidhi`s home in Gopalapuram. It was on the ground floor of a standalone apartment complex. The receptionist, who was surrounded by boxes of books and other materials, indicated the room where I could meet Diwakar. When I entered the room, I was pleasantly surprised to see a young, handsome couple welcoming me to their office. I felt instantly connected with the ever-smiling couple - cool, humble, friendly, helpful, with a positive attitude. No wonder, Diwakar was to play a major role in publishing a dozen of my books and also helped many of my friends realise their dreams of seeing their Memoirs in Print.
This is the story of a sportsman turned entrepreneur,
who was the first to introduce Digital Printing with a Print on Demand facility
in Chennai.
Diwakar is the youngest of three sons of Shri Ramanujam,
who was the Set Master in Gemini Studios. When he was in his Tenth class, his
father passed away, leaving the responsibility of bringing him up to his mother
and the two brothers. His mother was interested in cookery, handicrafts, and
writing, in addition to being actively involved in social service through the
Saidapet Ladies Club, which she founded in 1973.
Diwakar says, “My mother inculcated in me the spirit of
service to society. Thanks to her motivation, I have so far donated blood 77
times. All members of my family have also pledged to donate their eyes”
Diwakar did his schooling in Sankara Bala Vidyalaya and
Shrine Vailankanni Senior Secondary School, T. Nagar. While in Velankanni, he
became the unofficial photographer for the school events simply because he had
access to his brother's professional photography equipment.
Diwakar`s brother, A.V. Bhaskar, was a professional
photographer and was quite famous for photographing film stars and producing
magazine cover photos for many popular magazines. Diwakar used to assist his
brother in the shoots and learnt the art of photography from him.
“After an unsuccessful attempt to get a medical
seat, I settled to do my B.Sc. Zoology from Vivekananda College, Mylapore. My
heart was not in that course. So, I continued my photography and discovered
that I could also write in Tamil. I got the opportunity to take photos and
write articles for Kalki, Amudasurabi, Subhamangala, Dinamalar and Mangaiyar
Malar. The association with magazines and newspapers introduced me to the
nascent development of Photo Typesetting and later the emerging technology of
Desktop Publishing”.
Before he discovered his interest in printing, Diwakar
was to make his mark as a Table Tennis player.
“I started playing Table Tennis only during
my School final years. In Vivekananda I represented my college together with S
Raman, who later went on to become National Champion multiple times. While
participating in the tournaments organised by the Tamil Nadu Table Tennis
Players Welfare Association, I was encouraged to umpire the matches by the then
President of the Association, Smt. Tara Murali. She motivated me to qualify
myself as an umpire, and very soon, I was umpiring in the State Ranking
Tournaments. I then rose to the level of conducting classes and examinations to
select Umpires for the State. I was the Chief Referee for several State Ranking
tournaments—all these ,while I was still in college.
I had the opportunity to be a referee in the World Table
Tennis Championship in New Delhi, 1987 and also in the Asian Junior TT
Championship, New Delhi, 1989. By then, I had already started my company Compuprint and
spending time away for extended periods was proving to be difficult. So my
umpiring had to be curtailed”.
Diwakar met his future life-partner Deepa in the Table
Tennis tournaments. Apart from being a State Champion, she also represented
India as a Junior, in competitions in Japan, Egypt and Indonesia and won
medals. He covered her TT achievements in many Tamil Magazines, including cover
stories in Kumudam, Mangaiyar Malar and Savi. Cupid entered their lives, and
love blossomed between this made-for-each-other couple.
Deepa`s father, Shri T N Lakshmanan, was the Secretary
of the Tamil Nadu Table Tennis Association, who took a liking to Diwakar and
encouraged him to be a part of the Association's activities. No one in the TT
fraternity was therefore surprised when the two families joined to get the
couple married in 1992. Diwakar was then 26 and Deepa 21.
After completing his UG in 1986. His brother
Jayaprakash and he toyed with several ideas of entrepreneurship, including
Desktop Publishing. It was Shri R. Krishnamoorthy, then editor of
Dinamalar, who gave the brothers a set of brochures of Apple Mac-based DTP
systems and suggested they explore this option. Soon,
a supplier of Apple Mac-based systems in Delhi was identified. After going
through several ups and downs, three Apple Macs and a Laser Printer were
imported, and Compuprint started operations in Jan 1988..
“On the first day of official business, one of our
printer friends walked in with the first order to design the souvenir of the
London Murugan Temple. Talk about auspicious beginnings,” said Diwakar.
There were no trained operators at that time. So he
recruited youngsters with fast typing skills in English and Tamil and taught
them the essentials of layout and designing. Soon, he had enough business to
add 2 more Macs.
“We were doing a lot of company newsletters and annual
reports. The companies did not want to deal with multiple vendors and,
encouraged by the quality of my typesetting work, wanted me to undertake
printing works also. So I tied up with good-quality offset printers and
delivered the finished products to the customers.
As technology evolved, we updated ourselves with the
state-of-the-art software and computer systems. I invested in a Colour Digital
Printer and converted most of the offset jobs into digital., I also decided to
use a Monochrome Production Printer, which gave a fillip to our operations.
With designing, printing and binding operations all under the same roof, we
were successful in providing good quality books at attractive prices and in a
short turnaround time.”
Reliability and integrity were major factors for
the publishers, since they were giving away the Print file of their books. He
had already established himself as a reliable and quality-conscious printer,
and once he set up the Print-on-demand vertical and convinced the hesitating
publishers of the economics of short runs, there was no looking back.
The first book publishing client was Mr. Srinivasamurthy
and his Productivity and Quality Publishing. Soon, many prestigious publishers followed. In addition to
book printing, commercial printing for many 5-star hotel chains and commercial
organisations kept the colour production facility busy. Among the many other
clients, Music Academy has Compuprint as its main printer for all its designing
and printing requirements.
Diwakar says,” There
have been several challenging and fulfilling productions during these years.
The 12” x 12” coffee table book, Pigeons to Post by Steve
Borgia, which presented the development of Post in India, was highly acclaimed
in India and abroad. Discovery of Japan, a full-colour coffee table
book written by Ichiro Hoshino and published by the Indian Institute of
Management, Bangalore, is another prestigious project which demanded
uncompromising quality.
The 5-volume Sangita Sampradaya Pradarshini, brought
out for The Music Academy, Madras, was an extremely complex job in terms of the
content. With complex musical notations, this tested our competence to the
hilt. We have now done several complicated music books, including for the
Singapore Indian Fine Arts Society. The publications on Srirangam,
Ramanujacharya, Kanchipuram, Maestros of Carnatic Music and more for Mr. R.T.
Chari has been fulfilling assignments. I owe a lot to Mr. Chari for his
unstinting encouragement.”
Diwakar was among
the first set of print houses venturing into Digital Printing. Now, there are a
host of print houses that have moved into the Print-on-demand model. Even the
conventional offset presses have invested in Digital Printers to cater to the
low print run requirements of their clients. But being an early mover into this
segment, Compuprint has established a firm footing and occupies a niche space.
Though Compuprint started only as a Print Design
company, today, commercial printing and book printing form a large part of its
operations. Most of the books it prints are also converted to eBook versions
for selling through Kindle and other platforms.
Diwakar says, “To help new authors bring out their
works, we started a publishing imprint named Creative Workshop, under which we
have brought out more than 100 titles. We help the authors list their books in
eCom portals like Amazon and Flipkart, in addition to physical stores like
Odyssey. We have translators, professional editors and proofreaders on call and
support authors with these services.”
Compuprint has four experienced designers in addition to
trained print operators. From the latest computers and design software,
4-colour and monochrome digital Production printers, finishing equipment
including Perfect Binders, Programmed cutting machines, Laminating, Creasing,
Sticker Cutting machines in-house, it is able to offer high-quality, timely
service to its clients.
Diwakar received the Hall of Fame recognition from
Konica Minolta for being one of their top users who brings out the best in
their machines.
“In addition, for almost all the new book launches, I
have been invited to the stage and honoured. That, I consider as being the best
award I could get,” says Diwakar.
His wife Deepa, a Post Graduate in Commerce and a
B.Ed degree in Teaching, quit the teaching profession and now takes care of the
back office operations and accounts of the company. Diwakar considers her a
pillar of support to him in all his activities. His eldest son, Sai Darshan, is
a Chemical Engineer from BITS and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Cambridge
University, UK. He works in Siemens Digital Industries in London. His younger
son, Sai Prapanch, is a Game Designer and works in the USA.
Diwakar is a man of many parts - A writer, photographer,
printer, publisher, social worker- He also has an active presence on Instagram, where
he shares his photography, including images of cityscape, nature, and
cultural events.. Above
all he is a wonderful human being who is willing to accept any challenge posed
by his clients with confidence and delivers on his promises, every time. The
number of friends whom I referred to him for their book jobs will vouch for
this. A man for all seasons, indeed!
I am happy that Diwakar has been given ` Man for all
seasons Award` by the TAG group and Ramu Endowments at a function held recently at the Tag Centre, presided over by
Mr.N.Murali, President of Music Academy. A well deserved honour. Let us wish
Diwakar many more!
(The above article published in Madras Musings
issue dated 1-15th October,2025}
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