MERRY MEADOWS - Chapter 9 - Analyzing the Disconnect

While making our millions before we turned thirty was a popular benchmark amongst friends that I also subscribed to, I was never seriously fired by the desire for big bucks and lavish life styles. It was quite the contrary in fact. Maybe it required the kind of guts and effort that I was too lazy to work up, or too scared to contemplate. Slowly I drifted out of my inherited circle of friends. These were all well-heeled scions of the super privileged classes, and driven by their singular pursuit of inherited businesses and lifestyles.

Civil Servants all over the world suffer from this dilemma. While in service they are courted by the capitalist class, especially in government regulated economies like Pakistan’s. All manner of favour seeking takes place in the search for competitive advantage, and block tackle with a partial referee blowing the whistle in your favour is the name of the game.

For Civil Servants of weak spirit the flesh is often enticed by the lure of riches proffered by the favour seekers, and such bureaucrats are well set with bulging coffers as and when retirement rolls around, and they make the transition from civil servant to capitalist, hobnobbing with ease with the financial and social elite who would once line up outside their offices.

Even while in office such bureaucrats live the highlife, with evenings spent in the lap of luxury ensured by the favour seekers. When the odd kick in the gallop becomes the norm, and the template is warped beyond repair, then it becomes well neigh impossible for the God fearing to align with the system, and they either get out, or are kicked out. In the case of my father and two uncles they were kicked out, casualties of a war that cost us half the country.  

The few civil servants with noble spirit and strong flesh, and they used to be in a majority at one point, do not have a problem in the transition, no matter how abrupt or traumatic. They have lived their lives as Spartan warriors and dispensed justice without fear or favour. In so doing these upright and honest officers invariably develop authentic authority which is value driven and timeless, and does not diminish post-retirement. Provided the Spartan in the warrior doesn’t have a change in heart and become desirous of the opulent lifestyle of the capitalist.

That was never the conscious desire, the opulent lifestyle of the capitalist, when I chose self-employment as my career. That is what my father had done when he ‘retired’ from the Indian Provincial Civil Service and migrated to Pakistan. And since I had consciously chosen not to be a part of the Civil Service of Pakistan for reasons explained earlier, self-employment was the route to take, following in my father’s footsteps as it were, but as a primary career and not as a post-retirement time filler.

To gain a fuller appreciation about why I’m making such a big deal about my gainful employment, or the lack thereof, as a freelance writer one would need to travel back in time with me, and join me in the reliving of my personal story; of being born into a privileged Indian Muslim family that ‘fled’ to Pakistan 19 years after Partition, in 1966; of my lonely preteen years, spent floundering academically, being one of two Muslims in a class of thirty in Nainital, the much celebrated Indian hill station where I found very little to celebrate; of my early teens, spent in utter misery away from home in Aitchison, learning from scratch the Urdu language, and enduring barely the rough and tumble of a boarding school existence;

Of my late teens, spent adjusting to coeducational surroundings and the many distractions that come with freedom in college, while coping with the death of my father; of my early twenties, filled with squash, debates, girls, jam sessions and discotheques, and a love-hate relationship with mathematics in the undergrad years in which hate triumphed yielding a less than satisfactory academic score, putting it mildly; of my mid to late twenties, living the heady life of a successful entrepreneur running a chain of Taekwondo schools, and spending money like there was no tomorrow, something I lived to regret; of age 28, pretty much the high point of my life in retrospect, representing Pakistan in Sweden as chef-de-mission and winning the 1981 world team squash championships; and then the beginning of my trial and tribulation in right earnest with my thirtieth birthday.

If I were to pick a particular year for when life got uncomfortably serious it would have to be 1983. It was when realization dawned with the force of a sledge hammer that sent me reeling.

Up until then I had lived a relatively carefree life. I must have been pretty thick skinned, or perhaps self-preservation had sent me into denial, for what I had experienced in my twenties should really have brought on the realization a whole lot earlier.

The breakup of Pakistan in 1971; the identity crisis that afflicted every Pakistani, more so us university students; the systematic dismemberment of the civil service that followed, effectively removing it as a career option for me, a career that had been my uncles’ and father’s, one they had prided in; the deaths of my father and uncles, broken and disillusioned; my titular rise to head of a deeply fractured joint family; the breakup of the joint family; leaving the joint family house and starting life in a new abode; marriage; children.

I should have seen it coming as early as 1980, one full year before I rose to the high point of my life. In 1980 I got married, and spent my honeymoon visiting my elder sister in Jeddah. The fact that the trip was financed from proceeds obtained from the sale of my younger sister’s car, a silver grey Mazda808, should have sent alarm bells ringing, but they didn’t, perhaps because it wasn’t really a honeymoon that we were going on.

I had acquired a manpower recruiting license, a prized possession and theoretically the key that would unlock an untold treasure. Needless to say, my brother-in-law was very well connected politically, and my license was amongst the first thirty to be issued.

While the license in itself would not lay any gold eggs, the fact that my brother-in-law was posted in Jeddah as head of intelligence, and interacting with Saudi royalty and bureaucracy on a daily basis, held much promise for the future. Acquiring employment visas for Saudi Arabia would be no problem.

So, in that context, selling my younger sister’s car was a very good business investment, and in as far as the honeymoon was concerned, well, we would do it in style once the gold eggs started rolling in.

But they never did, not in the manner that I had expected, anyway. My wife and I spent  weeks in Jeddah performing multiple Umras, and visiting the holy sites in Medina. All through that period I couldn’t bring myself to broach the subject of my business with my brother-in-law. I just couldn’t.

Then, with less than a week to go for the Hajj, and the opportunity to perform it with the royal Saudi entourage thanks to my brother-in-law, my wife and I were overcome with this sense of urgency to return to Pakistan, and we did. I was back in Karachi, and flat broke.

My engagement with the Pakistan Squash Federation in the conduct of the Pakistan Open had been the 'silly' reason for that sense of urgency to return. Not performing Hajj that year, gifted to me and my wife on a platter as it were, would appear to most as a major self denial of divine blessing.

But in retrospect it wasn’t. My prosperity at the time was predicated on future earnings that had yet to materialize. As matters stood I had sold my younger sister’s car to pursue a business trip. The intention to perform Hajj had never been there, and so it was not to be.

The Pakistan Open that year in 1980 raised the curtain on Jahangir Khan, and my efforts in organizing the Karachi Squash Association and the Sindh Squash Association earned me the gratitude of the Pakistan Squash Federation that manifested itself in my appointment as manager, coach and chef-de-mission of the Pakistan squash team to the world championship in Sweden.It was a rare honour indeed, for the Pakistan team comprised Jahangir Khan, world ranked number one, Qamar Zaman, world ranked number two, Maqsood Ahmed, world ranked number four, and Daulat Khan, world ranked number seven. Winning the world team squash title was a foregone conclusion.

Spending six weeks in that beautiful country Sweden, leading a team that comprised of the world number one, two, four and seven, we were treated like visiting royalty every step of the way. My wife and I finally had our honeymoon, one year later, but in a fashion that money could just not have bought.

The 1981 Pakistan Squash Team that won the World Team Championships in Sweden. Left-to-Right: Qamar Zaman, Daulat Khan, myself, Maqsood Ahmed, and Jahangir Khan, reclining on the bonnet of the Volvo rented for the trip.

She was there when King Carl Gustav presented us with the trophy. She was the toast of the victory celebrations in the Egyptian team manager’s suite where the champagne bottles popped, only because under Zia’s rule celebrating in this manner, with champagne and caviar, in the Pakistan chef-de-mission’s penthouse suite would not have been kosher. Jahangir Khan, Qamar Zaman, Maqsood Ahmed, and Daulat Khan were like family, ferrying back to Pakistan the crystal gifts and purchases made by my wife all over Sweden, in particular Gavle.

Those were very heady days, and the missed Hajj, and my broke status back home, were pushed back into the deep and dark recesses of our minds. All that mattered was the green blazer that bore the Pakistan squash colour, and the jovial company of the four best players in the world, all attired the same way, with ‘Bhabi’ ruling the roost.

Returning to Pakistan from Sweden was in many ways not as bad as returning to Pakistan from Jeddah the previous year. The common factor was the cash crunch. But that now appeared in the shape of a minor irritant that would soon vanish.

For all intents and purposes I had made a successful transition from taekwondo entrepreneur to squash entrepreneur. There were squash courts to build, squash players to train and promote, and squash events to organize. My future most definitely lay in sports marketing and management. Mark McCormack was my role model and Jahangir Khan my first asset under formal contract for three years.

There is, however, many a slip between the cup and the lip. Professional sports in Pakistan, I learnt through hard experience, are the sole preserve of the bureaucracy, and when it comes to world champions there could be no room for an upstart like me.

Suffice it to say that from the dizzy heights achieved in Sweden I plunged to dismal depths engineered by a vicious bureaucrat in the sports ministry who, wielding the power of government largess, had my contract with Jahangir cancelled, challenging me to go to court if I dared, which I didn’t. I did, however, manage to make a tidy amount selling squash courts, before the bureaucracy caught up with me and put me out of business, forcing me back to the planning board, a place where I have spent much of my life.

Why I didn’t get into bed with the bureaucracy and milk the ‘holy cow’ of the State of Pakistan, like every successful 'entrepreneur' was doing, is a question that continues to bedevil my family and friends to this day. I admit that I too was agitated by my inability to pay a bribe. I brought up this issue of not being able to pay a bribe in a dinner get together organized by Bhai Saeed for old classmates from the IBA.

Our Marketing professor Dr. A. G. Saeed was there and still going strong. I asked him that of all the courses taught by the IBA, not one prepared us for this all pervasive ground reality in the conduct of business. The extent to which the government intrudes in the business domain is certainly no state secret. I never once came across the concept of ‘speed money’ during my time at the IBA. 

Despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, I have consciously maintained a high level of respect, bordering on holding sacred, the representatives of the state, of which I consider myself as one by virtue of my national squash colour. Add to this my belief in merit and the pursuit of excellence, and the giving of full measure.

Therefore, for me to pay a bribe to get done that which should have been done in the first place has never been an option. The coercive presence of the state is so all pervasive in the world of business that recourse to ‘speed money’ is pretty much the norm, especially for newcomers who lack the size and clout to get things done on merit.    

To family and friends who knew me then it might appear that I keep exaggerating my financial plight. My wife had inherited a substantial asset base of her own, and from my own inheritance I owned the roof that we lived under.

It was my own efforts at generating an income that had of late yielded dismal results, and the monies made as a taekwondo entrepreneur had long gone. Living off the fat of the land, as it were, didn’t suit me at all, and it suited my wife even less. That added to my misery.

At the theoretical level all my bases were fully loaded. There was no dearth of access to people in the corridors of power, and in a patronage driven economy like Pakistan, I was all set to becoming the next multimillionaire, if not billionaire, and power broker. Millions meant much in those days.

But my induction into the patronage game had been quite ‘inauspicious’, a complete disaster in fact, given my inability to make that one request to my brother-in-law, a request that he would most certainly have complied with, in retrospect, had I but asked. Many years later I would hear Bob Urichuck say, ‘if you don’t ask, you don’t get.’ One thing is for certain. The Lord most definitely works in mysterious ways, and if you don’t ask and don’t get there and then, then it’s for a reason that is far more beneficial in every way than instant gratification.    

My genetic inability to play the patronage game that entailed an often shameless embrace of sycophancy, had been further fortified one year later by the Swedish experience. I had now been blessed with the Pakistan colour, and in a field of endeavour where Pakistan held complete sway over the world. The Lord had rewarded me most richly for pushing the right buttons on the Saudi visas and Hajj issues. It was a reward, however, that further isolated me from my peers who were adept at operating in the gray areas of life. It made me far more rigid than ever before when it came to making requests and accepting favours that affected my livelihood but required of me to play second fiddle to people clearly bent on plundering the public’s trust.  

My wife, in the mean time, was driven to distraction. It is the fate of most wives married to men driven by a sense of higher purpose. She found me stubborn and unreasonable in my pursuit of self-employment when clearly I was doomed to fail in it, given my disposition and the business culture I found myself in.

She couldn’t understand then, and I doubt whether she has figured it out yet, as to why I wouldn’t complete my MBA and seek employment in some multinational, and rid us once and for all of this gloom cast by my self-inflicted financial insecurity in the name of noble poverty?

She couldn’t fathom the realization that had dawned on me in slow stages, acquiring the force of a sledge hammer that had me reeling. There was no way out for me. Taking refuge in a cushy employment shelter with my head firmly in the sand was not an option. That was not why my father had left his pension and retirement plans in India when he moved to Pakistan in 1966, a year before his retirement. The 1965 war had made up his mind.

My father was seized with a higher purpose when he finally opted for Pakistan. He came here to make a difference, and denied himself untold riches by walking the straight and narrow. My father left his entire life’s work in India. The priceless goodwill that he had built in his many postings as a provincial services officer in Uttar Pradesh, and the last few years of his tenure as deputy collector and district magistrate for Naini Tal, was left behind for good, never to be of any use to him or his family, in particular me.

My father had spent his life having people pleading their cases before him, demanding and getting justice from him. My father was an honest, upright, fearless, and God fearing Muslim officer in increasingly Hindu India. He had dispensed even handed justice amongst Muslims, Hindus, Christians and members of all other faiths on the merit of their cases, and in the process earned their undying gratitude.

No matter how hindu India got, it would not have made an iota’s difference to my father. Right through life he had backed his positional authority with mint authentic authority steeped in righteous conduct. I was supposed to inherit that undying gratitude of the countless people whose life he had touched. That was a priceless fortune that I was denied as a consequence of his decision to move to Pakistan.

Once in Pakistan he, true to form, turned his back on the easier and cushier options that his own brothers-in-law showered upon him. They were amongst Ayub Khan’s proud and privileged, and need I say more.

Instead, my father entered his retirement life learning the trade of a trader and embracing self-employment, pounding the pavements of Karachi when he should have been relaxing in the cool climes of Nainital, the hometown of that great white hunter Jim Corbett, showing tourists around the fabled jungles of Kumaon deep within which my father had set up court in a tent, taking justice to the people.

My father and I never discussed a great deal, but that never stopped me from adopting him as a role model. There was plenty to draw from the examples that he set. On the drive to Delhi from Nainital to catch the PIA Super Constellation to Karachi there was one remark of his that I distinctly remember, and it was a remark that he made a number of times as if trying to convince himself of it. “We have burnt our boats.” It left me a bit confused at the age of fourteen, but in retrospect I now understand what he meant. Our assets in India, both tangible and intangible, were now in our past and unavailable, and our future would be built on that which was as yet unknown.

As it turned out, my father’s future was a big anticlimax. The vision of Pakistan that Indian Muslims had at the time, that of a ‘pak sarzameen’, a land pure as the driven snow that was powered exclusively by a higher purpose, was rudely and brutally broken. His turning his back on government jobs and contracts, his refusal to ensconce himself in ivory towers, brought him face to face with ground realities that shocked and broke him. The myth of Muslim unity at the grassroots functional level, and the prevalence of parochialism, provincialism, sectarianism and racialism that culminated in the emergence of Bangladesh just four years after his move to Pakistan, was more than he could bear, and he passed away from his mortal confines on Chaand Raat in 1972. I was nineteen years of age at the time.

Merry Meadows - Memoirs of an entrepreneur