Sunday, July 28, 2002		Life Ties

SHASHI came up the hard way. He was a mediocre student with little interest in academics. He believed in practical education which equipped you with a skill set to take on the challenges of the times you lived in. While in college, he began exploring options of independently branching out. The driving force was never to make big bucks but to do something which was fulfilling and for which he could be responsible for. For this, he was willing to work 24 hours, seven days a week.

He identified two partners who had the money but not the time to invest. He sold them the idea of getting into buying and leasing heavy earth moving/industrial equipment. He did a feasibility study, identified prospective clients and got a company to sign a year’s contract before negotiating the best deal with the manufacturer. He drew up a two-year plan detailing how the capital amount would be recovered. This was 20 years ago, when venture capitalists were not around and selling/marketing was more by instinct than by acquiring fancy degrees. Shashi, in any case, was a hands-on person who could not spout jargon for creating an impression. He was practical, crisp and focused. No frills, only action points for him.

Within a decade, he had established himself as a successful trader, who without getting into the hassle of manufacturing and setting up businesses, identified products and went about aggressively wooing clients. Exports offered him his big break. He expanded his business and things now gained momentum. He set systems in place by relying on his gut feel. Not one to get conned by technology or the entire breed of management consultants, his enterprise functioned on simple principles of integrity, hard work, faith, determination and responsibility. In a way, he was street-smart. He had a pulse on the market and could be a step ahead of competition.

His friends felt that his unconventional approach was fine so long as business was small and manageable. As he grew, they advised him to professionalise. At a time when orders were shrinking, payments withheld and unethical practices rampant, he would have to get savvier. Unless, of course, he wanted other less competent but better networked players to eat into his share. For every negative suggestion of well-meaning friends, Shashi would smile benignly without offering a counter argument. He would quietly go about his work and a few days/weeks later call up the person who had made the prophetic prediction of doom and tell him he had landed yet another contract.

His friends were perplexed at how he managed it. His staff was committed to him. Most of them had begun their careers with him, actively participating in different stages of his company’s evolution. They swore by him and, without exaggeration, were willing to lay down their lives for him. When the business was going through a rough patch and huge payments were stuck, they offered to go without pay for two months, expressing solidarity with Shashi and to the company they had built together. Unless things went drastically wrong most people he did business with also became his permanent clients.

He never fleeced anybody, however strong the temptation. The quality of service his company offered was personalised and top-of-the-line with no trace of haughtiness. He kept himself abreast with the times, by investing in the latest technology, spending money training his people and sharing profits. He empowered his staff by giving them stock options long before companies like Infosys did.

On the personal front, he was happily married with a family large enough to fit a township. He was benevolent not only to distant relatives but to everyone he came in contact with, be it a lift man, driver, urchin, youngster asking for a lift, student wanting funds for overseas study or for that matter any wounded stray cat or dog. His compassion matched his ability to do something tangible for those in need. While he was ever ready to open the doors of his wallet and home, he was not gullible to a fault. He knew when he was being taken advantage of. If at all he allowed himself to be taken for a ride, it was with an awareness and if something told him to withdraw or refuse, he did with minimum unpleasantness. The ability to be in control, stay focused and know how much to give and demand made him an excellent judge of people and situations.

At the end of the day, he was a happy and proud man. He had created a wealth and knowledge base without getting drawn into activities which could take him away from those which meant the world to him. No chasing the limelight, grabbing club memberships, forming elite groups and spending millions on image building for him. He wanted to project a good image to those who came in contact with him, to make them aware of their power, so that they too could let their inner and outer image conform to their own dreams and aspirations.

When his friends tried putting their finger to what exactly made their unique friend tick so perfectly they found it was not luck, hard work or intelligence but the fact that he had no ego. He had no qualms about talking to the chief minister in the same tone as he did to his durban. He was never too big for anything. If he made a mistake he was not embarrassed to apologise. If he faltered on quality standards, he cut his profits by sending a repeat consignment rather than arguing or justifying. He accepted what he did not know and did not feel ashamed about asking the person across for instructions. A good listener, he always tried making time for those who loved him. Shashi’s positive aura led him to the right people and the too-perfect-to-be-true chain of good luck continued.