Portrait of a business with a human face

I was never happy with the planning and design  of my three-storied house with only two garages and no proper façade and approach road, built on less than 4 Kathas of inherited land in Dhanmondi Residential Area. I toyed with the idea of developing the land by a developer but with no success. The construction business which was once booming and skyrocketing  has now busted and almost nose-dived on account of political instability, flight of capital and insecurity. People were in quest of greener pastures popularly known in expatriate Bangladeshi community as 'Begum's enclave' in Toronto and second homes in Malaysia. Economy floundered and stagnated despite seeming GDP growth. There was glut of unsold aprtments. The developers were hesitant to invest in lands, let alone small lands.
However,  I heard of a house building  company which was an exception and might be interested to take up my project. I discovered that the MD of the company was a former president of REHAB, the builders' association.  
I went to see the MD of the company. He was busy in a meeting. The secretary asked me to wait with the deputy general manager Abdus Salam of land procurement on the first floor. I entered the third floor and found rows of almirahs stacked with medicine, first aid items including cotton and bandages. On the other side of the big room there were groceries, rice, lentil, oil, spices, onions etc. I was flabbergasted. I knew I was on the wrong floor.  The manager on the first floor cordially welcomed me and apologised that MD was in a meeting and ordered coffee and buscuits for me.  In course of discussion I asked him if they also dealt in  grocery and pharmaceautials and I mentioned my experience on the third  floor. He gave a laugh and explained that the medicine was for workers and the groceries were for inhouse canteen. He said every Friday morning the company doctor visits construction sites to examine the health of workers.  He said every Friday the company prepares an improved diet with meat to provide protein food to the workers. He also said after Jum'a prayers the workers were free for the day and not allowed to work. He said that worker relations were prompted by the twin principle of moral resposibility and motivation to encourage a healthy and contented worker to offer voluntarily the best service.
It was 2:00 pm. The manager invited me to join him in the dining hall for lunch. He said each employee makes a monthly contribution of taka 500 only for lunch. The menu is rice, fish, vegetables and lentil and chicken or beef once a week. The deficit expenses are supported by the company. The result is, there is a sense of participation and belonging by the employees and workers to the organization as members of a family, he said. As I entered the dining hall he showed me the MD who was taking his lunch along with the employees. It was a rare extraordinary experience of camaraderie in our extremely class-ridden society.
The lunch over, the manager took me to introduce me to the MD in his office. The MD after much discussion with me said he was willing to take up my project and proposed that out of six apartments he will give me four apartments besides taka one lac per month as house rent. He said he would also examine if he can give me some monthly mintenance allowance. He said he would take up my project although he knew full well he would not be able to do much business. I looked at him in disbelief and asked him to be frank why he was interested to take up the work, considered not viable. He said, "Money is important in life, but it is not everything. It is merely a means to an end which is peace of mind and happiness. One must attach importance to human values of love and compassion for others. We live in a human society and not in an island. Our short-lived and transitory life must have some meaning and purpose which is to serve humanity." He said he also believed in the saying, "Little drops of water make a mighty ocean". He added he hated to be filthy rich at the expense of interest of land owners and apartment buyers. His philosophy is 'not to kill the goose that lays the golden egg'. If the land owners and apartment buyers survive, he and his business will survive. He said he wanted to be rich just enough to be able to lead a decent and fulfilling life, sustain his business and support his employees and workers. I knew that I was at the right place and chances were that I could clinch a deal.
Yet another surprise waited for me. As I was preparing to leave, a lean and thin boy took his seat before the MD. The MD asked him about his tution fee, board and lodging expenses in Dhaka university dormitory. He called the accountant to provide the student taka 3,000 per month henceforth. He informed me, so far more than twenty boys and girls had passed out as MBBS, MBA, accountants and also engineers from BUET with his humble financial support.  He was frank when he said he knew the chill penury of poverty as he himself was down at heels and out at elbows in his childhood in his village home in Matlab. He said it was the moral and social responsibility of the well-to-do of the society to help the meritorious poor students. Without help and his determination, he confessed, he could not become an Engineer from BUET.  Quoting a poet he said: "There is God's bounty. We receive but what we give".  Tagore was right, he said, when he wrote: "The more you accept, the more you make me indebted". A little earlier, an eminent writer came to him and presented ten copies each of his two recently published books. I knew he financially supported the publication. I asked him if his business model was inspired by social business of Nobel Laureate Professor Yunus. He said he was certainly motivated by ethics and morality in business.  
While talking about his career background, he said he started as a civil engineer in a consruction company in Singapore. One night realisation dawned on him about the futility of serving a foreign employer in a foreign country and wasting his talent, skill, vision and organisational abilities without serving himsef and his  own country to which he owed so much. Later, his participation in a short course in management training in Japan confirmed his self-confidence that he could do well in business. He returned home and started with a scratch which now is one of the ten top real estate builders in the country, with impeccable credentials of honesty and integrity. It is a triumph of intelligence, hard work, determined will and sincerity of purpose over adversity. It is a tale of rags to riches.  He has constructed  and handed over more than 120 quality  high-rise buildings and has sixty on-going projects in Dhaka city and some in outlying district towns.
He said with a little more construction-friendly government policy and less delay in negotiating 'transaction cost' at every step of the way of myriads of bureaucratic tangles, he could offer apartment buyers a more affordable price. When asked 'what is his best satisfaction in life' his instant answer was 'a smile in the face of my apatment buyer couple'.
He is passionate to see engineers work with hand and tools in the field as true nation builders of roads and highways, buildings and bridges.
The MD is a fascinating  character, an enigmatic personality and a blend of the sublime and trivial. He performs Hajj every year, pays his Zakat in letter and spirit, does not accept bank interest, calls his son who is an engineer and a director in his company as 'Apni'. When asked, he says every man and woman is a dear creature of Allah and it is appropriate to treat them with deference.  Now I know why my tough and taciturn police officer father used to call my unlettered mother 'Apni', women's lib in those days was nonexistent,  notwithstanding.
The MD disappears for a week in a remote obscure district town for prayer and meditation in seclusion and returns to the metropolis to attend an international seminar on management in a 5-star hotel and preside over board meetings of his company. He goes on a horse ride in Kashmir during vacation with his family. He wears designer clothes and Bali shoes. The name of the MD is Engineer M A Awal. The name of his company is Stuctural Engineers Ltd (SEL), writ large on the door of his imposing ten-storied company building on the Panthapath. The MD wants to remain incognito and shuns publicity, though. I hope he will take my indulgence with a note of condescension.
It was 4:30 in the afternoon. As I was plodding homeward, my weary way of eighty winters, I was wondering why could not other company owners particularly the much-tainted and derided garment industry emulate and replicate his best business practice. Life would be so much more pleasant and decent and society so much more caring, sharing and compassionate and less cruel, ruthless and unfeeling without gaping sores of inequality and social injustice.  
The MD must be an endangered species facing extinction in our fast decadent and decrepit society bereft of love and compassion, wallowing in limitless greed, fraud, sleaze and plunder of wealth by desperadoes and dissemblers, swindlers and criminals masquerading as bankers and businessmen, bureaucrats and politicians.
The writer is a columnist and former diplomat. E-mail: [email protected]