Soon after settling down in Beirut, the writer got busy with an international trade fair in Zagreb. The 49th part of a series describing the unknown triumphs and travails of doing international business

AK Ramdas

The next couple of days were simply spent in reading the files and making my own notes of how we had been functioning in the office. During the first week we had a couple of visitors who were actually stopping over to look up the Casino de Luban and the Moula Rouge, rather than getting into serious business in the country itself.
 
The problem was not difficult to surmise; as even before I came I had done a little bit of home work and found that there were hardly any vessels that plied regularly between Indian ports and Beirut. Statistically, our export of engineering goods to Lebanon was small because of shipping difficulties and, more importantly, the merchants preferred European and Western goods in general. As for electronic goods, the only source they relied was Japan.
 
We were still making some headway in small items like diesel engines, hand tools, some building materials; most of these came on shipments to Aqaba, the Jordanian port from where they would be transhipped by trucks crossing Syria before reaching Beirut.
 
The first important thing that I did was to build up a strong and comprehensive library covering the widest range of products available, with all sorts of catalogues and leaflets. I needed the data of exporters and their experience in the Middle East. A format was designed and sent to the headquarters so that this could be circulated to all members and that they should respond directly to me. Our office, though operative for so many years, did not even have a post box for getting the mail, and postal delivery was very inadequate. As a first step, I persuaded Mr Parekh and his partner Suleiman if we could use their box number, and I could collect the mail at least twice a week from main post office.
 
Not being a strict vegetarian, it was possible for me to carry on till my family arrived, which they were scheduled in the first week of September.
 
It was during the Independence Day celebrations held in the Ambassador’s mountain residence I was able to meet a large number of Indians and became friendly with Casewa (STC), Pratap Goregaonkar, Anand Swaroop (Pest control) and a host of other Indian merchants from the community.
 
A large percentage of Indian merchants were involved in the jewellery trade; others were in general arts, antiques; some others like MS Dewan and Patel were regular importers and agents for Indian goods, some of which were engineering in character.
 
Visiting the market was done in the afternoon, which was spread over a wide area. It started with builders’ hardware, hand tools, cast iron pipes, fittings and manhole covers in which India had made headway even in UK and USA, but some of the merchants told me that they would rather pay more and buy from OK foundries in Beirut because of quality and quick deliveries. The communication problem was the language; either they spoke Arabic or were reasonably fluent in French. With a little help from Rozine and reading a self-taught book, I began my study of Arabic with rudimentary knowledge of commercial conversation!
 
The response from the Indian exporters was overwhelming and we had hundreds of letters with all sort of details, catalogues, etc that I had asked for to set up a good information base. This kept me extremely busy and I was working alone, several days a week till late in the evenings.
 
In the last week of August, I received a telegraphic reminder about the trip that I was to make to attend the Zagreb InternationalTrade Fair, on which day itself, the mail arrived giving full details, saying that our Foreign Officer at Dusseldorf could not make it because of sickness and I should go there instead. I tried to collect some info on this fair, while struggling with my Arabic.
 
My family arrived in the first week of September; fortunately, my wife had brought most essential items, and after introducing her to the neighbours, particularly Padmaben (Mr Parekh’s wife) and showing her the basic routes, I left on my trip to Zagreb after I had phoned the commercial counsellor if he needed anything from Beirut. I was surprised to hear that there were hardly any oriental/Asian vegetables and they were getting fed with cabbage and potatoes so I carried a variety of with me.
 
From Beograde (Belgrade) airport, I took a coach to the embassy and was met by NP Alexander, an extremely knowledgeable and cooperative officer, with whose guidance I arrived in the Central railway station to take a berth, for my onward journey to Zagreb, where I arrived next morning.  From there I went straight to the fair grounds and met one Mr Gandhi and Mr Bhansali, both of whom were teamerchants . I met others like Rishi (from the Indian Fair Authority), Rama Sen from Calcutta who was a textile chemist and many others. With Mr Gandhi's help, I was able to get a sleeping accommodation in a family home, as hotels were full. The landlady gave me hot water for a bath; I mean a shower, for only three days a week!
 
The work was hectic in the Fair; I kept visiting various Yugoslavian companies, most of which were government-owned, and became friendly with Vasilka Bugonovic and her husband, both of whom worked in different organizations, but from whom I received a great number of enquiries.  Every night I would detail them and send them by airmail to my head office. It was here I was introduced to their national drink called Slivovitza, a kind of vodka; and it was Rama Sen who taught me the rudimentary principles of playing the roulette at the Zagreb Casino!
 
In those days, our daily allowance was seven English pounds a day (GPB 7) and we had to survive on this and save, if we could! But, as luck would have it, thanks to Rama Sen and my beginner’s luck, I generally made ten or twelve pounds a day, following which I would leave the casino, take a couple of friends and go out and eat.

We also befriended some of the fair visitors from India, who were lucky enough to have booked hotel rooms and we would take turns to go out and have a hot shower, as the weather was becoming bitter by the day and freezing by the evenings.
 
I returned back to Beirut and within the next twenty four hours a complete report was prepared and sent, courtesy of an Air India manager. Our Bombay office collected the same for onward despatch to the head office.
 
Though Rozine had done a good job of handling a few exporters who came to the office, we had literally tonnes of catalogues that were still being sorted out and indexed. I think, it took us three months more to say that our library had a good selection of catalogues, price idea and the range of products India could offer.
 
It was a satisfying experience. Meantime, my wife was able to arrange admission for our two sons to go to Silesian (Italian) school, which was at a walking distance from our residence; she took care to drop and collect them every day.

(AK Ramdas has worked with the Engineering Export Promotion Council of the ministry of commerce and was associated with various committees of the Council. His international career took him to places like Beirut, Kuwait and Dubai at a time when these were small trading outposts. From being the advisor to exporters, he took over the mantle of a trader, travelled far and wide, and switched over to setting up garment factories and then worked in the US. He can be contacted at [email protected].)