Love to know the thoughts that are sticking in your mind about your life as a toddler, youngster
Memories of my very young age…grew up in a big house in a joint family with my grandparents, my parents, uncles, aunts and occasional visiting cousins. No phones or TV for distraction, all the time playing with friends around.
About your education and your entry into the business field.
After completing my schooling at Haji Essa Haji Moosa memorial school, the most infamous school, for about eleven years, I joined Maharaja’s college for the last pre-university batch and I went on to join TKM Engineering College in Quilon. That was a five years course in Mechanical engineering. Always looked forward to occasional coming back for holidays to my house, to my parents and it was always a big family get together. On completion of the course with very good marks I had no hassle of searching for a job as my family business of seafood exporting was waiting for me and in 1969 I stepped into Abad. I am now completing fifty years of seafood export activities as Managing Director.
I had the privilege of heading “The Seafood Export Association of India” with pan India presence from 2007 to 2011 and also number years as Vice Chairman of MPEDA. Also worked as member in Board Of Trade, NFDB, EIC, GCDA, Port Trust etc.
The toughest decisions you took in your profession that paid off for the long run.
There are so many decisions, I can’t say the toughest one. But you know, when you plan something and it pays off feel very happy. Thank God I don’t remember any bad ones. Alhamdulillah.
Everyone got a style of functioning, in your professional life you were leading a team, how you describe your leadership style.
Leadership style I would say, ruffling as few feathers as possible is the best way. You have a lot of different opinions in a team and to get those members along without creating much of fighting...You know I was in the seafood association, where I was President for Kerala for about two years, way back from 2005 to 2007 and from 2007 to 2011 four years I was President of the national seafood association. So those years also we had a lot of different opinions among the members, so it is like you are more than a dictator you are a referee. That is the way we can go along successfully.
What attracted you towards community service?
We have some charitable societies and family trusts, that are going on for many years. About thirty-eight years back, I joined a team, that is “Raksha School.”
It was for the children with disabilities then changed to physically challenged and now it is differently abled. The name changes, but the activities are the same. Our ancestral home was sold to this school and there are about fifty very dedicated teachers and support staffs for taking care of about a hundred and forty multiple handicapped children. It gives you a lot of satisfaction when you serve them because you always feel how fortunate you are when you engage with those children. When you see those children, you are automatically forced to support them. It’s an instinct.
Which project completion of the Jamath under your leadership gave you satisfaction?
As the president of the community, my first thought was how to create some housing for the members. We collect the zakat money, so I thought why can't we direct it towards one activity which is housing. it was a very hard decision because you know there were priorities...there are very poor people, their food, their clothing, medicine their education where all concerns and Cutchi Memon association and Jamath was doing that. And I thought maybe Cutchi Memon Jamath should concentrate on housing. The thought of the people of our community, who may go from house to house every eleven months was very horrifying. And from the very first year, we did start making houses and Alhamdulillah now we have forty-four those houses built in the Cutchi Memon Hanafi mosque compound plus in and around Jamath office. We are building eleven more, to be completed next year Insha Allah. So we will have about fifty-five houses for our community members, who don’t have a house before who were homeless. My sincere thanks and appreciation to those good-hearted people of our community who made this venture possible.
As the President of the community, you are closer to the community and well aware of our community, what are the things that worry you?
In our community, there are many poor people whose children are not educated. If you look at those forty-four houses given by Jamath, hardly anyone is educated. Educated means reaching a certain level, where they can find a job and get employed. They all need a lot of support. Another thing I found disturbing is very few are willing to work. We tried to do Chapati making program in the community, we tried to do things like fish sales, but nobody even wanted to listen or even bothered to participate in that. I do not lose hope and sure to do more to convince everyone around.
Are there any issues that come to your mind where you felt that you didn’t get full support of the community?
No, there was no such thing now, everybody is very co-operative and we never had any issues. This is my sixth year, all these six years we never had a major fight. Future looks bright.
We got Jamaths in different parts of Kerala, all functions independently. Can’t we think about linking these Jamaths for common causes of the Memons, keeping the independent functioning style as it is now?
I had been to Alleppy a couple of times to see their activities. There it is a little different from our activity. It is not that we cannot do jointly things. What we can do is to create some jobs for the people of our community in Kerala. Our people are not much interested in jobs, so we have to push them to do some other activities.
Our younger generation is not so active in Jamath, very few even attend the general meetings, how can we inspire them to involve in Jamath activities? We got the young Memon youth forum, they had some vegetable garden project, but then there was no continuation. How to inspire them? I think the smartphone culture and things like that to blame.
I would say the old generation was very simple. There were no gadgets to distract them. Now all had gone into their shells, each individual is with his phone or his i-pad. He is not interested in talking, he is not interested in expressing, he Is not interested in friendship. Absolutely in a shell, it is a very bad thing but can’t help. Wherever you go to whichever community you talk to, whichever parent you talk to they are all complaining about their youngsters. These phones have become so affordable and now they are going to give free net…so it is going to be worse.
In Cochin, many are now living in flats or in small houses that have very minimum space. When death happens, we have seen the difficulties they face, can’t we think of a funeral home?
Funeral homes have issues. The founders of the Cutchi Memon Hanafi mosques laid down some rules and procedures. They gave wakf 71 cents of land for the burial of Memons. Another 35 cents given for the burial of other Muslims. Our ancestors kept the 71 cents only for the Memons. We had lots of discussions over this. Others have this facility in other mosques.
Ladies in our Jamath are more educated than men, it is a fact. How can Jamath utilize their services? How can we give them some roles in Jamath to perform for the betterment of the community?
I am not sure how many of the women are educated, that we should find out. We have to take census.
Presently you are the leader of our Jamath, as the President what are the changes for the wellbeing of the community that you aim?
Easy money is the main problem that we are facing. There shouldn’t be free money then only people will be motivated or they simply sit at home expecting someone to handout money. People should be ready to do work and earn money. We can plan tailoring and food making units, people should come forward to participate in that, hope the youngsters may come forward. Our educational system also to blame, if one complete SSLC or pre-degree or a BA or B’com it’s of no use unless they specialize in something. I was suggesting some innovative things, like a common kitchen. These forty –four families have about a hundred fifty members. If they can all come together and plan common kitchen their monthly budget can be brought down and that will give them more savings. It is an idea which happens in a lot of families especially among Jews community. If it starts, we can support them. One breakfast that cost them now ten rupees can be brought down to five. Thank God in our communities we don’t have caste systems so no problem of untouchability like in some others. So it is very easy for us to do things commonly and that will save money, time and energy. We hope in the new building eleven houses we can try the system.
About the flood relief works of last year…
About flood, Mr. Gaffar Essa Sait was there, (May Allah shower his blessing on him), he worked hard together with Rafeeq Usman. Gaffar’s son also came a few times. We went to those places at least fifteen, twenty times and gave them a lot of support. Bombay Jamath gave us five lakhs, Mangalore Jamath and Madras Jamtah also gave us money and we also put some money from our side. About twenty to twenty-five lakhs worth of medicines, clothes and many other things were distributed. We did Masha Allah a very good job.
About your family…
My son Sheraz is heading marketing at Abad and had been President of Cutchi Memon Association. My two daughters are married and we live happily with our children and grandchildren…Alhamdulillah.
Thank you, sir, thank you very much for this candid conversation and we appreciate on behalf of “Memon Boli” the quality time you spent with us from your tight schedule. Thank you.
Interview By Ansar Shakoor & Rafeeq Seelat
