Moti Matani led a comfortable life in his village in North India, living with his family and studying science at university. But he decided to leave his comforts behind to start a new life in the Archipelago. “Leaving a small town and going abroad was quite striking and interesting for me, at first I didn’t know where I was on the map Canary Islandsbut that’s how I arrived”, Explain. A cousin had already been working on Tenerife and proposed the trip. Years later he would manage, together with various partners, to found the electronics store Visata in 1973.
After his arrival he began working in another electronics store without knowing a word of Spanish. When he met several colleagues they decided to open his own store in The Gran Canarian palms half a century ago. “We started again from scratch because the only thing we had was the illusion and the desire because we did not have the means,” recalls Matani. They were difficult years, all they did was work and only a few years later they managed to see the results. “Of course we worked very hard because it was a fight to survive, once you leave your country you want to do well and not come back as a failure, so the fight was different,” he says..
Matani, who at first would only be passing through the Canary Islands, did not have the consent of his family to stay longer than the three years he had promised. “There was a great frustration because it was not pleasant for the family that I went so far”, Explain. Although when things began to go well, his relatives accepted that he stay to live in Spain because they could visit on more vacation occasions.
The founder of the business assures that he feels like a Canarian after having spent his entire life on the island since he was 21 years old. “Someone told me that we [los indios] we do not integrate, but I don’t want to lose my roots or be absorbed even though I feel like one more canary”, he expresses. In fact, Matani says that when Spain entered the common European market, many Indian countrymen who also ran stores went to the peninsula because the Canary Islands “lost the advantage of a free port.” “Some asked me why I wasn’t leaving and my answer was simple: I took my suitcase once, I’m not going back again.”
The business has changed drastically over the years, especially the type of customers. “When I arrived here, international tourism had not yet begun to emerge, what you saw the most were the ships that arrived from Spaniards who went to work in South America or Australia and were ships that came to shop”. At that time, those were its potential customers, but in the 1970s air tourism began to prosper, especially from Spaniards who traveled to the Archipelago to enjoy their vacations or honeymoon. “In the peninsula there were import restrictions and taxes were much higher, so in the peninsula, except for large cities, there were no merchandise that we sold,” he details.
Five years ago Puneet and Priti Matani took over the reins of the store after their father’s retirement
They came to have 14 stores between Gran CanariaTenerife and Lanzarote. Just one year after opening the first one on Ripoche street, they opened a branch in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. When the capital of Gran Canaria ceased to be the center of tourist activity and the south began to take importance, they opened several stores in the area, but they ran into reality. Electronics is a thoughtful purchase as it is expensive, so tourists, who tend to buy objects compulsively, did not usually make purchases. They closed the stores in these enclaves and now sell online. There are currently five stores left, one in Gran Canaria, three in Tenerife and one in Lanzarote. Five years ago Matani retired and his children, Priti and Puneet took over the business.
A business that has been modernized over time, but that continues to maintain the cultural traditions of its owners. As reflected in the altar to Indian deities that can be found in a corner of the store. “When we open stores, it is usually done with a prayer,” Priti explains.
