Beirut was the place where the east and west mingled easily and even the very conservative Arab from neighbouring states would feel free here. The 55th part of a series describing the unknown triumphs and travails of doing international business

It was early morning, when I was getting ready for the office when Mike from Commodore called to say that a Capt Krishnan Nair was in the hotel and would like to meet me.  Apart from exporters from India, we had many airline crews staying there, including Air India.
 
Though I had seen many crew members in the hotel during my brief visits, I had not established any contact with them.  It was therefore a surprise that Capt Krishnan wanted to meet me.
 
When I met him a few minutes later, it turned out that Capt Krishnan Nair had really nothing to do with Air India, except that he took their flights often. He was, in fact, managing director of Leela Lace a well-known textile manufacturer, who was on a fact finding mission en route to Europe!
 
Though I spent most of my time and energy in promoting engineering goods and services, when enquiries came for other items, I passed them on to respective export promotion council or suggested that the person to meet the Indian Embassy commercial secretary, VP Singh, a well-educated, Arabic-knowing IFS officer for his advice.
 
As we got to talking on the subject, I realised that as Beirut was the most fashionable centre of the Middle East, there should be no reason who I should not involve in our Indian Women’s Cooperative Society to do some marketing. Immediately I got in touch with Pratibha Patel and Pushpa Dewan, and asked if they could organize a display of the materials.  Meanwhile, this young and dashing Capt Nair managed to persuade an upcoming film star and leading fashion model, Gladys Aboujoude to come and wear the various lace dresses that he had brought with him.
 
Twenty-four hours later, we had a beautiful show with Gladys wearing the dresses and walking up the ramp!  The hall was overcrowded with lots of local merchants and was a great success, well covered by the Daily Star, the only English newspaper in Beirut!
 
The cooperative was already marketing the Indian silk scarves, which I had helped them to get, on a consignment basis, from Artwork Exports Pvt Ltd from Calcutta.  I believe Capt Nair was able to get a few contacts after the exhibition.

When I reached the office the next day, after collecting the mail from the GPO, I found a lot of enquiries for various items in Saudi Arabia, and the usual complaints of importers asking for delivery of documents without payment due to delay in shipments. Most importers paid off the dues, but, very often they would turn around and asking for some special discounts. I was thinking of a short trip to Jeddah and Riyadh, when I met an old friend, Musa, a member of an aristocratic family in Iraq, who had similar association with a member of the ruling family in Saudi Arabia. He welcomed me to visit him in Riyadh.

I took the trip to Jeddah and met our Ambassador and Bijli, the commercial attaché, both of whom had become close friends. As a matter of practice, I always kept in close touch with the embassy, and freely exchanged my notes and reports with them.  So, when I told him about the royal unofficial visit to India, he was totally taken aback, and only when I assured him of my close relations with Musa, we discussed the issue after which a top official message was sent to our prime minister. The visit was a grand success and on his return Musa showed me the framed welcome address by the community in Bombay.

After this visit, our connection with the Saudi Embassy in Beirut became much closer and they were very cooperative in accommodating our requests for visit visas to all our exporters, provided a letter from the EEPC accompanied the application! We made the major breakthrough in supplying steel drums for their refinery in Jeddah, made by Steel Containers, a government of India undertaking.

Encouraged by the response, I made even more contacts in Riyadh, where Musa had a small aluminium window making and steel wool plants. Unfortunately, we could not make any headway in our supplies, as India was short of the metal itself and used steel window sections instead, which, the rich customers in the Middle East did not want to use.

The Lebanese people looked European in physical appearance, and had a beautiful blend of eastern, oriental and Arab hospitality, all rolled into one! Friendly and hard working go-getters enjoyed their life to the full. Government offices closed latest by 3pm which many establishments followed, though shops and other business houses dealing with both east and west worked longer hours. Beirut was the place where the east and west mingled easily, and even the very conservative Arab from neighbouring states would feel free here.

 The population of Lebanon was about 2.5 million people; a similar number of Lebanese emigrants encircled the globe and their remittance, back to the country was large, for which reason the Lebanese lira remained a stable currency in the Middle East.

 The only problem that people faced was the large number of Palestinians in country; they were welcome to stay and even work, as long as they did not take law into their own hands, which, because they carried arms, occurred once in a while causing trouble to the ruling government.

 Yet, the people always remained cheerful and hospitable.  If I remember correctly, it was Laila who began the first ever hijacking of a plane which emanated from Beirut International Airport.  No one could visualise that this would be the beginning of many to follow in the years to come.

(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; and later to the US. He can be contacted at [email protected].)