Open the medicine cabinet in a typical Bengali household and you will almost certainly find it — the squat little green tube of Boroline, its octagonal black cap as recognisable as a family heirloom. Look at the study table of an older generation Bengali, and there is a good chance the ink bottle once sitting there bore the name Sulekha. These aren’t just products. They are emotional coordinates.
But here is what makes the story more interesting than nostalgia: these brands didn’t just survive the 21st century. Several of them are actively thriving in it — posting profitable numbers, expanding into new geographies, winning national awards, and fighting off imitators in court. They were born as acts of economic defiance during the Swadeshi movement. They have re-emerged as genuine business powerhouses.
This is the story of Bengal’s Big Businesses.
Boroline — The Green Tube That Outlasted Empires
In 1929, G.D. Pharmaceuticals coined a word — Boroline — and attached it to a dark green antiseptic cream in a dark green tube with a black cap. Nearly a century later, that combination remains essentially unchanged. That is not stubbornness. That is brand equity so deep it is practically geological.
Boroline has been named an Indian Consumer Superbrand six consecutive times between 2003 and 2017, earned the title of Master Brand in 2014, and was listed among the Most Desirable 30 Power Brands in 2018. But the most significant milestone came in August 2024, when the Delhi High Court formally declared BOROLINE a “Well-Known Trademark” under the Trade Marks Act — placing it in the same legally protected category as India’s most iconic brands. The ruling came after a competitor attempted to sell a product called “Borobeauty” in deceptively similar green packaging. The court didn’t just rule in Boroline’s favour; it noted that the brand had been continuously used since 1929, had appeared in newspaper advertisements on India’s very first Independence Day, August 15, 1947, and had accumulated recognition across three generations of consumers, doctors, and chemists. The imitator was ordered to abandon its green colour scheme, its black cap, and even the prefix “Boro.”
Boroline has been registered both as a word mark and as a label mark, and the product has been in use since 1929 for antiseptic medicinal ointments and creams. Today it is available not just in local chemist shops but on Amazon and Big Basket — the same spongy Bengali grandmother-smell of a product, now available for next-day delivery.
Fun fact: A Boroline advertisement ran in an Indian newspaper on August 15, 1947 — the day the country became independent.
Sreeleathers — The Kolkata Shoe Brand That Walked With a Generation
On Lindsay Street in central Kolkata, there is a shoe store. It is, according to records, the world’s largest single-brand footwear store. The brand is Sreeleathers, and its story is one of remarkable persistence in a market that has been disrupted multiple times — by MNC brands, by fast fashion, and by the rise of e-commerce.
Founded by Satyabrata Dey with a straightforward proposition — quality leather footwear for the middle class, at prices that didn’t require saving up — Sreeleathers has held its nerve through every wave of competition by sticking to what the founder called “World Class, Right Price.” In 2023, the Retailers Association of India awarded Sreeleathers as one of India’s Retail Champions in the Footwear category.
The company generated revenue of ₹221 crore for the financial year ending March 31, 2025. Its distribution network spans exclusive stores and 27 dealers, stretching across metro cities and Tier-II markets. The company operates three business units — two in Kolkata’s New Market area and one in Jaipur — and has long-term expansion plans that include a deeper push into South India. Sreeleathers is noted for being almost debt-free, which indicates strong financial health — a characteristic that becomes more impressive when you consider that the footwear segment has been one of the more volatile categories in Indian retail.
Fun fact: Sreeleathers’ flagship Lindsay Street outlet holds an official record as the world’s largest single-brand footwear store — a fact the company wears as proudly as a leather badge.
