As post-war reconstruction took hold, Rao Sahib Jashanmal Jhangiani, with his brother and a few friends, sailed from India to land in Basra, Iraq, to take advantage of the opportunities that such activities would create.
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Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
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NewsTranscript
00:00My grandfather, looking around, decided that here was a country now developed fast because
00:08of its resources.
00:10So the British wanted to develop it.
00:13And so he said that this would be a great opportunity to try something out over there.
00:19So he tried and he succeeded in selling and importing and selling mainly goods and services
00:32which were required by people from the British Empire.
00:37Kuwait was a total desert, didn't have a very big history of the past.
00:46And the main people living there were from the northern areas of what we call even Saudi
00:51Arabia today, which is basically full desert and no natural resources except when the British
01:01in their search now had found oil.
01:04So Kuwait was ready to be exploited for oil.
01:10The British high command which was in Basra, the center was Baghdad, but still Basra was
01:22an important place now and becoming quite more important.
01:25So the leader there was a person called Colonel Dixon.
01:31He knew my grandfather very well.
01:33Colonel Dixon was posted from Basra to become the political agent, like a promotion for
01:43him to be the head in this new country protected.
01:49So him knowing my grandfather convinced my grandfather to open up a branch in Kuwait
02:01saying that the people coming in for the oil industry, because they would be coming, they
02:06would be coming with their families.
02:07You know in the old days if you shifted you had to shift with your whole family.
02:11You know traveling up and down like today was not possible in those days.
02:16People still traveled by ship.
02:17You know if you had to go to England it takes at least a month from that area.
02:25So families used to move.
02:28So families would be moving in because they wanted to exploit the oil as fast as possible.
02:35And that's what they did and that's how my grandfather was convinced and by that time
02:42my father who was his eldest son had already joined him in business, had been with him
02:51for a few years and my father was sent to establish the business in Kuwait.
03:03And after that of course the history goes that wherever oil was found we were asked
03:10to come, we were invited either by the British first but after that by the ruling families.
03:18So that went like that in 33 it was in Kuwait, in 35 to Bahrain and then in 55 to Dubai.
03:29As far as Dubai was concerned, Sheikh Rashid had wanted to develop Dubai and at that time
03:37Bahrain was taken as the, let's say, connecting communications and whatnot headquarters in
03:45the Gulf.
03:47And that's when Sheikh Rashid was visiting Bahrain which was already very much developed
03:54in comparison to Dubai of that time and well the ruler was showing him around, he brought
04:00him to our store also and that's when the connection was made and Sheikh Rashid told
04:05my uncle who was my father's younger brother that I want the shop like yours, I want you
04:13people to come and open also in there.
04:17And so when we came here, it was a funny story because soon after we came to see it, in that
04:28same year, the flights, aeroplane flights started from Bahrain to this area.
04:36So when Sheikh Rashid was asking my uncle, he said, come choose where you would like
04:45to have the store because the usual thing was they would give you the land first.
04:54They would give it to you for 25 years and then it goes back to the government but to
04:58help you develop and help the country develop, that was quite a system.
05:05So when he asked my uncle where he wanted the land for the shop, my uncle said, what
05:13is today Al Nasser Square in Dera?
05:17So Sheikh Rashid was very surprised to ask him that, he answered that because he told
05:23him that all the action is in Bar Dubai and Dera is a small village, small town on the
05:33other side, but everything is here, all the banks are here, the British Embassy is here,
05:42the Rulers Palace is here, the Rulers Palace office is here and all that is there.
05:47So why do you want to be on that side?
05:50So my uncle said, listen, I've come by air.
05:53So air travel has now started.
05:56From air travel starting, all the new people that you want for development, they'll come
06:00by air.
06:01They'll all come and they will start putting the things in Dera because how do they all
06:07come with their equipment, with their things, with all their stuff?
06:10How are they going to come to Bar Dubai?
06:14Because there were no bridges, no tunnels, nothing of that sort.
06:18There were no roads anyway, hardly any roads.
06:22So this is how, he says, therefore I'm choosing Dera because I foresee the development of
06:29Dera coming up.
06:31Because of the airport being here, you know, so he said, unless you build an airport in
06:36Dubai and you build it on this side, you know, and things like that.
06:46But this is how it is now.
06:48And if you, the way I see it, that you want to develop it quite, you know, at a pace.
06:54Because in those days there was no commerce with, there was commerce going on between
06:58Iran and India and what not here, East Africa, because it was all by those boats and all
07:05the traders were the ones with the dhows and bigger dhows and things of that sort.
07:11So that's the business was.
07:13But with the West, it was by ship mainly still, the ships going all around.
07:21And then a little bit by air started from Europe directly or from England.
07:28Everything was mostly from England.
07:32And so we dealt with the English people and we, our speciality was basically dealing with
07:40the British goods for what the people from the oil companies wanted.
07:45So we fell in that category.
07:48And the one big thing was because there were so many British people here from every angle
07:53of life, mainly from the oil companies, from when the airlines started, but the airline
07:58companies, when the telephones started, from the cable and wireless, the big British company.
08:05And all was very, very British, requirements were British.
08:09So we also specialized in bringing British products here.
08:13And the main system used to be that once we had the store, the expansion in all the city,
08:21in all the towns was actually very fast.
08:26When the expansion happened, transportation also wasn't that easy, etc.
08:31So people wanted these goods also for wherever they were living.
08:36So many smaller shops started in other places.
08:41But the products that they wanted were the ones that we were selling.
08:47And they were not big enough to be able to import them themselves.
08:52So this is how we got into a distribution business of those same products, but to those
08:57other places.
08:59So from a very early age, we started also a small way of distribution.
09:04But there was a time also where the distribution business overtook your own retail businesses.
09:11Although when the towns expanded, we started having also our stores in different places.
09:17But the expansion was always so big to new areas where people still had that demand.
09:23So you kept on getting people to take them.
09:28Then what happened that many nearby countries like Iran, like some places in East Africa,
09:36there were some people, the development was going on everywhere.
09:43So people used to come because Dubai, for instance, was always a nice re-export place.
09:50And Dubai is still going to thrive on that, where a hub, that hub was always there.
09:59The boats were always coming in here, they were lined up in the creek, and they were
10:03being loaded with all the types of goods, from cars to refrigerators to whatever you
10:10want, as requirements for many countries around.
10:16So a lot of your goods kept on going out that way to countries over here.
10:20So business was good.
10:25We have, of course, many things and values.
10:29My grandfather was very, very strict, and I say now you cannot last for many, many years
10:35unless there is a founder with strong principles or values which go down over the generations.
10:45You can't change the DNA too much for it to actually function this way.
10:53It just so happened, I mean, I've studied enough of other businesses and other successful
11:00businesses, etc., whatever you might call them, and you see if they are multi-generation,
11:07then they would probably have a founder who had fairly strong principles.
11:15So I mean, he had very strong principles and he always wanted that you keep to them.
11:22And there were always principles like you always fix the prices according to fair value.
11:31His thing was, you have to make profit so as you can develop your business and be a
11:41better service to people, okay?
11:47You don't see it as a thing to make your money, but you are a service.
11:54And therefore, you do not charge them too much.
11:57You don't take from them your service to the community.
12:02And he used to always equate it with something else.
12:06He used to say, for instance, never think of yourself as a business.
12:10Think of yourself as part of a community where you have to do your bit and your contribution.
12:22The society cannot function if people do not contribute to the society.