Sagas Of Sweat & Earned Destinies

The Book, How Sindhis Do Business, Paiso, Reveals How A Stateless Business Community Exploded Across The World, Bringing To Life The Scriptural Idea – Vasudeva Kuttumbakam – The World Is My Family, And Proving That Reservations And Entitlements Are Not Necessary To Succeed
 

- Sangeeta Wadhwani

At the launch of Maya Bathija’s debut book, it felt like the entire business community of the city was in attendance to listen to a panel of five superachieving Sindhis – Gary Harilela, Romola Motwani, Jitu Virvani, Harish Fabiani and Dilip Kumar Lakhi, along with the author and the publisher, Milee Aishwarya.

The sagas unfolded at a healthy pace, keeping one engaged, and mostly, focusing on how from a refugee status post-Partition, the Sindhis of the world today have built colleges, hospitals, and several philanathropic institutions in India and around the world.

The book opens with a rousing forward by Ashok Hinduja, Chairman, Hinduja Group of Companies (India): “Sindhis,” he writes, “are the descendents of the Indus Valley Civlisation, which historians today, after fresh evidence has emerged, regard as the oldest in the world. Yet its rich and ancient culture has mostly gone unrecognised.” A little further on, he continues, “The Sindhis were the original transnational business community of India, which managed its businesses successfully despite waves of European mercantile trade and colonial onslaught... The partition of 1947 was catastrophic for the community. We became stateless and we had to migrate from our ancient homeland. Our never-say die attitude helped us embrace the numerous lands we migrated to. We built ourselves from scratch to regain our prosperity by being true to our business heritage.”

HELLO! presents excerpts from the stories of three stellar business families from the Sindhi diaspora – the Harilelas of Hong Kong, the Motwanis of Miami and the Fabianis of Spain.

THE HARILELAS OF HONG KONG