How I met a real Gujarati brand ambassador

I have seen all your films as a child, he said to open the conversation. We are in the business class of an Air India ( or is it Indian/Indian Airlines??) on what I think, wrongly, is a direct flight to Muscat. No this is the usual stop over in Mumbai flight. That just added about three hours to the flying time.

I didn't pay him much attention. He was obviously unsophisticated, wearing the newer version of the 80s safari suit and a big tilak to boot. My instincts warned me to keep to myself.  Post 2002 Gujarat makes me wary of men with large tilaks. (I wonder whether my own large tilkas have gone missing from my forehead as a recoiling to this?)

Something made me start a conversation three quarters of an hour later. I asked him where he was headed. Bangkok was the response. He told me he was going to check on a client who had a problem with a mould he had produced. He explained that he was in the business of making moulds. Plastic ones. "Are you an engineer?"   I asked. He laughed and said " No, No I am a mistri (ironmonger)".

He was born in a tiny village not far from Ahmedabad. His father died when he was little. He used to go to the village school under the lone neem tree. The school only offered an education till the sixth standard.

His mother was scrounging at menial jobs to keep the family together so he set off to seek his luck in Ahmedabad. Coming from an ironmonger's family he headed for menial jobs at factories dealing in iron.

"I used to get two or maybe four rupees a day". He worked his way slowly up the pecking order, changing jobs from one industrial unit to another. The last of his 14 years thus spent, he worked at a mould factory. "I can do this too" he thought.

He started small. Today fifteen years later he thanks his stars and god/goddess for smiling at him. He now employs 125 people, his son ("He was no good at school so I sent him for shop floor training in my business") having joined him recently.

Knowing nothing of the mould business, I asked him what kind of moulds they make and what prices they fetch. "Well suppose a manufacturer makes washing machines.

There are about 12 to 14 different plastic parts in that and I would make the moulds for each of those. Once the manufacturer has the moulds they can be used for a million washing machines. For that I would get about Rs 90 lakh. I have about 80 clients and we have orders to last over seven months. Gujarat is good that way".

His daughter is in the tenth, waiting to give her dreaded board exams. She is very bright he tells me, and has an interest in Bharata Natyam. Not to ever let the chance slip by I caution, "Do let her study and stand on her own feet." "Oh. I want that too. She learned skating and karate and she can protect herself. She wants to be a pilot".

Just then Air India makes a bumpy landing in Mumbai. Very bumpy. "I hope your daughter learns to make better landings" I say to him ruefully.

As he deplanes in Mumbai he smiles sweetly and says, "Ben you see how lucky I am. I was booked in economy but came late so they pushed me here. And I get to sit next to you".

As you know I am making a list of fifty Gujaratis that I would make our brand ambassadors for our golden jubilee year. Mr Mistri would certainly be one.