The GARD Bags brand represents an absolute commitment to quality and value. Further, it represents an unwavering fidelity to the promise of exceptional safety, comfort and style. This can be seen across our full lineup of protective bags, cases, wheelies, and accessories, designed for brass, woodwind and other instruments.
GARD Bags is an important and thriving segment of the Talwar company (Talwar Brothers Pvt. Ltd), a family business, now in our third generation. Our R&D and Design center, our state-of-the-art production facilities, and our management operations are centered in Kolkata, situated on the eastern coast of India.
Balraj Talwar migrated to Kolkata in 1943 after the partition of India. He borrowed money to start a business in timber that was in short supply after World War II. As the business grew, he enlisted his brothers to help him manage it, and Talwar Brothers was officially launched in 1948.
Fourteen years later, Balraj’s eldest son, Vijay Talwar, enrolled at the University of Hamburg, Germany, eventually earning a Master’s degree in wood technology to help grow the business. He returned to India in 1967 and guided Talwar Brothers to become the first company to export ebony from India using his newly acquired technical knowledge.
In the early 90s, recorder maker Moeck Blockfloetenbau und Verlag, a longtime Talwar ebony customer, asked Vijay to make a cotton bag for its recorders. One year and 178 samples later, Moeck submitted an order, and Talwar Brothers had made its first foray into musical instrument bags.
After exhibiting recorder bags at the Frankfurt Musikmesse, the company was approached by Normans Musical Instruments in the U.K. to make bags for its brass and woodwind instruments. Talwar’s GARD Bags was born in 1995, with its logo—a mother kangaroo with a baby in her pouch—representing how GARD bags protect the instrument with the same care that a mother gives her child.
In the decades since then, GARD has emerged as one of the most respected brands in its class. We are proud of the trust we have earned from working musicians on every continent, who cradle their prized instruments in a GARD Bag.
MBA in Hotel and Business Management, Cornell University, USA
In-charge - Marketing and Sales
Woodwind instrument Maker (Germany and Switzerland)
In-charge - Finance, Bags and Wheelies
Masters in Wood Science and Technology, Hamburg University Germany
Overall in-charge, especially wood products.
Recognised star export house by the Government of India
The Indo German Chamber Of Commerce
NAMM – National Association of Musical Merchants
VSA – The Violin Society Of America
MDA – Music Distributors Association
ITG–International Trumpet Guild
Capexil – Chemicals & Allied Products Export Promotion Council, India
Texprocil – The Cotton Textile Export Promotion Council Of India
The Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council, Mumbai
The Synthetic & Rayon Export Promotion Council, Mumbai
Council For Leather Exports, Chennai
The Handicrafts Export Promotion Council, New Delhi
The Eastern India Shippers Association, Calcutta
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