The Golden Deer, My Dream and The Nightmare

 

The Golden Deer

 

While in my office in the spring of 1996, I was busy with pre-shipment preparation for my order of ladies’ blouses to be shipped to Chile, I had a couple of unexpected visitors.

 

One was Isaac, who had visited me once in the past. I had not met Roger, his companion, before, though.

I welcomed them in my cabin and offered them the chairs across my table.

After a few formal pleasantries, Isaac started to talk about business.

Isaac had a British accent and so had Roger, though, they both were Indians, as I could tell.

It was Isaac who did most of the talking.

He spoke at length about their business and business ties with a lot of buyers, most of them in the USA, who were buying large quantities of garments from all over the world and they were helping export of garments from India because they loved to promote India to the world.

They have been greatly successful in promoting Indian garment exports in the previous 5 years or so, according to Isaac.

Slowly and with great skill, Isaac, who was playing Maarich, was turning into a golden deer and I, like Maata Sita in the Ramayana, was getting ready to fall prey to the sham, as I can say today.

 

When Maarich turned into an extremely beautiful deer, whose beauty was such that Maa Sita was completely mesmerized with it and insisted on Shri Rama to get it for her. Even after Laxman cautioned both Maata Sita and Shri Rama, on insistence of Maa Sita and due to his own confidence, Shri Rama did go after the deer and thus Ravan succeeded in his mission.

 

I had been into the export of readymade garments since 1991 and so far, after working extremely hard, almost 18 hours a day for so many years, was not able to break into a good market for my business.

This meeting apparently seemed to me to be a springboard for better business opportunities.

With hindsight, I can say that my sense of judgment was getting lost at the altar of bright flood light that was thrown on me by Isaac.

He was making good progress in convincing me to accept his very tempting offer of a large order for export to the USA.

Sitting in my office, he was preparing good ground to plant his seeds for growing plants that would yield him huge returns if carefully followed up.

After about an hour of smooth marketing talk, Isaac and Roger left with a promise, as he figured that I was already in for his bait, to get back to me later. He showed no sign of rush to get back to me as he studied my body language, as now I can say. He wanted to show that he was a big man and only wanted to be helping me, rather than the other way round.

 

The golden deer disappeared then and my daydreaming began.

 

It was in the month of October 1991, that I began my foray into the business of export of readymade garments and that journey began with the first lag in the Middle East.

My first step of taking the big strides was Dubai, the business-friendly country in the Middle East.

After staying there for three months and working very hard to develop business there, I did get some success.

Once I was back to India, I started working to make business successful. In the first 2 years or so, I operated from home putting in almost 18 hours/day almost every day.

Then, I started to operate from a rented office. Soon, I got in touch with a buying agent who would buy for the South American market. The office in Mumbai would get a Letter of Credit opened by their Hong Kong office, so that we get paid once the shipment is done on the strength of the documents presented in the bank.

The problem with the staff in Mumbai was that they were extremely corrupt.

There were two staff members and every single raw material that we were to purchase were to be procured only from their designated vendor and in each and every transaction, there was a commission that was to be paid to them. But the worst part was that whatever price was agreed upon was at least 10-20% less than the price offered by their Hong Kong office, so we all exporters were supposed to pay the difference in cash to the Mumbai office staff, so we ended up either making a loss or simply managed to cover the expenses. There was no profit in any of the orders and we all lived on the hope that one day w would make it. 

That day never came, at least for me.

So, I looked for other buyer/s, and the saga continued because even the new buyer would offer such a price that left hardly any room for making profit.

There were other orders but those orders were much smaller and even if there was some profit in those orders, I did not have the economy of scale, so even in those orders, I ended up barely surviving.

So, I was obviously tired of ‘surviving’ and wanted to grow.

Isaac brought the opportunity to grow, as I saw then.

 

Dream turns into nightmare

 

I did receive the big export order.

There is a long story of the whole episode.

But, in nutshell, the whole saga turned out to be a big fraud.

That whole episode was somewhat comparable to the coronation of Shree Rama, whose life completely turned upside down, who ultimately decided to go into exile to save the honor of his father King Dasharatha.

Initially I saw big dreams and when the dreams turned into nightmare, I felt like the whole earth slipping under my feet but, due to the anugraha of Ishwar, I was able to put it behind me and moved on.

I accepted that as my karmafala which helped me immensely.

 

So, I would sum up that situation with these two points as under:

 

1.            I was tempted with all the big talks and saw a golden deer that had immense riches for me expecting a huge turnaround in my life with a lot of positive outcomes, just like Shree Rama was expecting to be a King. However, the expected outcomes did not occur in both the cases.

2.            Shri Rama decided to go for vanavas for 14 years without any sense of dejection. He accepted it with so much of equanimity that is hugely inspiring for all mankind and especially for those who are inheritors of this parampara, that is we Sanatanis. I had one sleepless night before I made up my mind to surrender to the will of my destiny, accepting that as my karmafala.

I think this assignment is my honest attempt to fulfill the needed criteria.

 

Thank you

Udit Shah

2 Sept, 2023