Have I made it LARGE?

The idea came to me from an ad for McDowell’s whisky, where stars like Saif Ali Khan and Gautam Gambhir list their long line of distinguished achievements and then ask themselves, “Have I made it large?”

It’s a good question to ask oneself periodically as it allows you to take stock of things and really assess how you’ve done so far or are you on track or not. The key however lies in realizing two simple truths about the question.

One is, whether making it “large” is the real objective or not? I mean have you even set yourself that goal, because not everyone wants to take part in the proverbial rat race? The second is how do you define having made it “large”, because it could mean different things to different people?

For the sake of keeping the discussion simple, let’s assume that everyone including me, has set himself or herself the goal of making it “large”, however, it only differs in its meaning.

Having set that premise, I dare to embark on this journey of self evaluation at the tenderly ripe age of thirty, and the first step on this journey entails me clarifying my personal definition of having made it large. However, I shall not start with the definition, rather I will enlighten the readers with the second step first, which is that of listing the various achievements…..no, wait a sec, I can’t call them achievements yet since the yard stick has not been defined… so lets call them “significant events” during the course of my life thus far.

It all started one morning back in 81’ in a dusty old town of Ajman, (I’m pretty sure most of you don’t even know where that is, ………well go look it up, I’m not wasting space in telling you that it’s the 4^th largest emirate of the UAE after Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah and that its located 5 minutes towards the north of Sharjah!) when I was born on the auspicious day. It was an innocent age where even Dubai was still finding its feet and though hordes of expats had made there way to these shores, it wasn’t difficult to realize your dream of making a better living than back home, wherever that might be. Everyone knew each other as it was a small community (not really an advantage if you were a bit adventurous) but the only attractions on offer were bowling and skating at the Al Nasr Leisure land J.

However, even during those times, there was nothing holding people back from dreaming big, and my father was one of them as well. So he ventured into his own business, leaving a relatively cushy job with perks and starting out on his own. Fast forward 8 years of continual losses and in ‘98 we were down in the dumps. Suddenly we couldn’t sustain in Dubai and had to make the eventual move back home very prematurely. Suddenly the bubble burst, for me as a 17 year old, the world came crashing down. No foreign education, no coming back to my dad’s business and expanding it to an empire, no nothing. That was the first big event in my life, the first set of circumstances that really affected me, that shaped my personality. Up till then I was living in my own fantasy world, a straight A student, mild mannered, not too big on the latest style or fashion, didn’t have the most fancy console games or gadgets, just going about my way. Suddenly, my school fees could not be paid and a higher education became a distant dream. I had just completed my 12^th year of education by giving my AS Level exams, which was fortunate because this was the first year, the school I was in decided to offer AS Level examinations, otherwise I would’ve had to wait for the next year to give my A Level exams. Anyways, it was decided that I would be shipped off to Karachi first and would try to get into IBA which had always been a fall back option should a foreign education not materialize. But getting into IBA wasn’t going to be easy. It was touted as the toughest university to get into with a long procedure of screening which sorted out the best from the rest.

I had to stay with my nani (who I call nomi pyaar se) initially as my family stayed back in Dubai. She lived all the way in Kalaboard, Malir, a few minutes from the Karachi airport. From there I took my first steps in the city of Karachi by getting on the mazdas and infamous coaches. The fare used to be 3.5 and 5 rupees respectively, I still remember that I got off in the wrong direction and fell backward on the road since I didn’t know that you had to get off in the same direction as the bus was going in order to maintain balance. I still remember that I used to stand waiting for a bus with a seat available for upto an hour at times adamant that I would only travel when I found a seat, and then failing to find one started going on buses with space for one foot at the door, standing space on the window sills, hanging from the rear frame, sitting on the roof, those were the days.

I enrolled into the month long preparatory classes for the feared IBA entrance test and quickly found out how deep in I was. The big fish from Dubai was no longer the smartest guy around. I was surrounded by students who had worked their butts off to get here in a tougher system with tougher competition and were honed at fighting it out to the top. Have to admit I was nervous, but I persevered, I trusted the methods that had got me here, and slowly but surely, I started enjoying the independence and the new budding friendships. The big day came along rather quickly and when the results were announced, my name was not on the list. Dejected, I refused to give up because IBA had another test for the people who could afford to pay more for the same education a week later. This time I passed and sighed relief as the alternative was pursuing an Economics degree at KU which wouldn’t have been the end of the world, I now realize, but would’ve been the end of the world I’m living in now.

However, there was still the interview and group discussion to go. I turned up on the day of the interview and the first question I was asked was did I sit in the CBM test the same morning. I admitted that I didn’t even know they were having a test. I mixed up Adam smith and Douglas McGregor’s theories, and had to prove that I could write Urdu by writing the word “Bilkul” in front of them, but somehow I got through. This was followed by the group discussion which went off well, and finally I found my name on the list of people who had made it (I would be only the second person from my family to grace the IBA campus). We still had to borrow the money to get me admitted but I was in. In the midst of mad recent happenings, I could still somehow hold my head up high and walk amongst the best as equals. This was the first step towards resurrecting my life and that of my family’s. From here it was more hard work and then the ultimate challenge of finding myself a good job. It made sense to ask oneself at this point:

“Have I made it LARGE?’…………….the answer was not yet!

What followed were the most formative and fulfilling 4 years of my life. I made life long friendships and learnt a lot from everyone I met. It would be safe to say that I learnt more about life outside the classroom than I did while in it. In the first semester itself, our class team won the campus cricket tournament, which made us quite popular, our class also won the internal debate competition, with me getting the runners up trophy, and we won our first talent show with a truly innovative performance with me in the lead. I was on a high, a high that comes from feeling you’re alive every second, every breath. I could feel every moment. Along came concerts, and dinners, events, gate crashing, sleep overs, group studies, going to cheap cinemas to watch cheap movies, bowling alleys, football and a whole lot more. I remember transforming into an extrovert as before IBA I was never the outgoing kind.

I never said no to anything, whether it was a plan to go for lunch or dinner with friends or on an IBA endorsed event. This helped me make friends across various groups in IBA and got me out of the confines of just my classmates. The net of friends widened and not out of any ulterior motive but purely out of fun. I discovered I could dance at IBA and soon we were looking for excuses to dance. Beach picnics, artifice, talent shows and mehndis. By the 4^th year I was being invited by people who barely talked to me to come and dance at their mehndis, (somehow they always lost my number when it came to the actual wedding ceremony J). No worries, I enjoyed it all.

I also discovered I could act, and so came along BhaiLog company. The time spent at Suneel’s place with rehearsals will forever remain etched in my memory. The high of those performances, it was pure bliss.

There was also the struggle to land good internships as this would then be seen as the first step to a great job, so the internship hunting season would be a frenzied one for everyone. For my first internship I got into Citibank which was quite an achievement for me as well, because it still meant the head could be held up high. Also I had gotten in with no “source” so the sense of achievement was even stronger.

Should I have asked my self then: “Had I made it LARGE?”

The second internship came pretty soon after the first and by this time I had set my eyes very clearly on P&G, every marketer’s dream company. They too had a rigorous procedure to hire internees who were then granted an extended 2 month interview as P&G had a famous policy of only hiring from their batch of interns. They had a complicated test, a screening interview and then a panel interview. Don’t know the ramifications of admitting now that the test paper had been released by the previous year’s students and I had been privy to it before we actually sat for it. Naturally we passed, but P&G got wind of this and were being extra tough on the screening interviews. Of the 400 odd students who sat for the test, some 132 passed, and only 18 cleared the screening stage. Of the 18, only 8 or 9 got offered the internships. Still remember the day I got the letter and I read the first line “we’re pleased to…” don’t remember the rest, reading that much was enough. Now I really felt I was in the big league, and I really had to ask myself:

“Had I made it LARGE?”

3 years into P&G and I was once again wondering where it was all going. I had run up a huge pile of debt and had made the same mistakes my father had made. Surprisingly, I somehow refused to learn from his mistakes and in the yearning to give my family the same lifestyle they had back in the good old days, I kept racking up the credit. I was obtaining all the material comforts, from the latest TV set, a window and split AC, fancy furniture and so on, all culminating with a car. Thankfully I came to my senses quickly as well and started consolidating. At the same time I got an offer from IFFCO and I took it. Partly because P&G was getting too much for me and partly because I wanted to settle all my liabilities quickly as well, this was only possible by earning in Dirhams. Once again the P&G experience was a rich one and taught me everything I know. The time spent there will forever hold me in good stead. Just like IBA, every day was fun and challenging at the same time. I was surrounded by young enterprising people with a fire in their eyes. Everyone was out to prove themselves and pushed themselves to the limit day in day out. It was a very high performance culture and there couldn’t be a single day you could take to pause and reflect, if you stopped, you fell behind. Some of the best minds and talents going at it made for a very highly charged atmosphere and the stress took its tool. There were burnouts, and feuds, and resignations, but we soldiered on until one day, even I bit the dust. I had had enough of explaining why I didn’t sell 1 MSU more or less last month and so decided to risk everything and head to Dubai for a relatively unknown company in the grand scheme of things.

Thus far I hadn’t faced any real failures on a personal level yet, I wanted to get into IBA, I did, I got 2 great internships while there and the eventually got my dream job as well. The detour wasn’t bad, before my last exam and on the day of my sister’s marriage, I became the first one in my class to get a job offer and that to from Engro chemical, (Pakistan’s first multinational company). They offered a 46,000 Rs. Package which I eagerly agreed to and joined on the day of my 22^nd birthday. A week later they posted me to Dharki where I found myself living alone with no family, immediate or extended for the first time in my life. I cried that first day, and once I got myself together, I decided to explore Dharki, I was done in 2 hours. 3 weeks of sulking and I found myself back in Karachi, where I promptly got a call to attend the Shell assessment center. Once again I was pitted against some of the best minds IBA and Karachi had to offer. Out of the 8 only 3 got in initially with the other 2 being 4.0 and 3.99 GPA holders from my batch. Once again the sense of achievement and pride soared and I was immensely proud of myself.

Shell posted me in Pindi and I was there for about 2 and a half weeks before I got the call from P&G. I flew down to Karachi and had decided to go without a tie, which was not a smart thing to do I was told. So I borrowed a tie from the person I was there to replace, the Marketing Director was new and hadn’t seen me during my internship. He asked one question: “What’s your objective in life?” I started with the obvious answer but he interrupted me and said, “what’s your REAL objective?” I drew a deep breath and said I want to build a house for my family. He said that’s it then, “Welcome to P&G”! and that was that.

Back in Dubai, I realized I had made a mistake the first day at work and didn’t have the guts to go back. I knew I had a window of about a year since I had been termed a “regrettable loss” at P&G and could be taken back. However, 3 months into IFFCO and Henkel cam calling. They were opening up a new office in Dubai and needed somebody in Marketing. A 45 minute interview, an hour long case study report and 2 online tests later, I was offered the job. New lease of life, I was ecstatic, it had happened again; finally I’d be able to set everything right.

It’s been a little over 5 years now and I have settled all my liabilities, saved up for my marriage and those of my sisters, paid off all loans, my dad’s and my own, took the parents and my wife for Hajj and am currently 7 months away from completing the payments on the house I wanted. God willing, my family will shift into the new place by the turn of the year.

So now “Have I made it LARGE?

It all comes down to the definition. Somewhere down the line I realized all this was not what we’re supposed to be chasing after. Amongst all that was going on, a spiritual awakening also occurred during the month of ramzan of 2005. I felt as if my faith had been renewed, as if the realization that had always been there suddenly became more apparent. Everything happened for a reason, nothing was random, everything was a test, good times and bad times alike. All this was temporary and the real life was awaiting us. Simple truths but so strong that once you realize the enormity and reality of them, nothing else seems important. Using this as a guiding light, the definition was and is and should be simply work for your after life, material things are immaterial and prepare for the questions we will be asked upon death: What car did you drive? How big a house did you make? What brand of mobile or watch did you have? ……….no? that’s not it, is it?

Once you know the questions that’ll be asked, and once you’re on the way to finding the answers to those, then ask yourself “Have I made it LARGE?”………….the answer will be in the affirmative!

Later.