Foreigner in My Land

I have discovered life again and again by doing things people feared the most. I was told by a Pakistani consultant living a prosperous life in Saudi Arabia that Pakistan has nothing to offer. It is full of corruption and most of the youth don’t get anywhere unless they go abroad.

Having had extensive experience with traveling and living in new countries, I was truly sick of immigration officers and the humility asians had to face in acquiring visas or going anywhere. Since I had never ever lived in Pakistan , I used to also at one time think that Pakistan must really be a place where you get nothing, thats why people do anything to leave.

Since I had started my career through my own work as a business consultant and had seen success in countries other than Saudi Arabia, even though at the time I met this gentleman I had been broke - I decided to test Pakistan.

I had just closed down my company in Cyprus and was in Riyadh - wondering where to start from when it hit me. Come on now, you are Pakistani. Your grandfather was the general secretary of the Muslim League ( UP) and worked with Jinnah to create this state. Why do you forsake your own country and live in someone else’s country calling it your own? Surely, there must be something one can do there?

I borrowed Rs 50.000 from a friend. I requested my mother to let me use her old apartment at Clifton which she bought ages ago for commercial reasons. And, I got in a plane and went to Karachi. My relatives, who hardly knew me, wondered WHAT I was doing there. I was a foreigner in my own land. The only thing I knew there was the language. I knew no one else and I knew not what waited for me.
The apartment was old. Windows broken - and cockroaches all over the place. I was home for the first time at age 30.

The challenge was to build a life from there with 50,000 in hand and nothing to back me. No relative. No friend and nothing else. Just me, clifton and my apt. No phone. No Cell phone and no transport. The adventure started.

I decided that for the first 3 months, I will just observe society. I will listen more and talk less. I will sit everywhere and know everyone.

I spent the first night on the floor. It was winter and I had only two blankets. I put one on the ground, put a pillow on it and slept under the other blanket. I looked around me when I woke up, there was nothing but empty walls and a variety of sounds coming in through the windows with no curtains. People passing by and peeking inside. The chokidar looking in and smiling, probably wondering who the heck is this crazy fool.

I had a stove and some basic accessories. I was able to make coffee and sit near the window and see what’s outside. People. Busy people. Sounds of cars, rickshaws. People speaking in Pashto, Sindhi, Punjabi and Urdu. Dark skinny men cleaning the sewers. Life. Absolutely the opposite to what I had been living in for 30 years. I knew that morning what riches to rags meant.

I got dressed and walked out. The gatekeeper had a little conversation with me asking me about who I am and what I was doing there. I told him I own this apartment and I had come here to setup a life. He laughed hard.

“People are dying to go where you have come from and you come back here? Are you sure you were not kicked out of Saudi Arabia?”

Wow! This really hit me. People are dying to leave??? Why the hell?.

For the next 3 months, I walked all over the city. During the day, the night and the evenings. I made friends with Snake Charmers, cleaners and many many different kinds of street people of the clifton area. I would buy daal roti and eat it with snake charmers at night on the street. They would pray for me and tell me what a good SAHAB I was. I worked at the grass root level. Our president kept saying we have to start at the grass root level. So I started at the grass root level. I was threatened several times and I was right out there and saw it all happen. Junkies, drug dealers and addicts. You name it. I accepted these people as my people. This is my country - this is my people. Poor or rich - its what God has given me and I will work with it - I told that to myself each night.

I started human resources development work. I created an online company in UK.

I was totally broke now. There was a net cafe close to where I lived and I had made a deal with the owner, that I would pay him monthly. I reported to all my contacts worldwide about what I was doing and how I was training ex-convicts to be better people by going into their homes and living close to them.

I started to get support , people started to invest in my development programs when they saw an ex-convict, who used to clean sewers speak english and dress well. A man the world had given up on - now was the best butler in town. I had trained him to be that. With him came 50 other criminals - wanting to learn from me how to grow into being better people. I would go to their old neighborhoods amongst guns and gunshots and sit with them. Talk, show and make them understand. I was surrounded by these people. I taught taxi drivers how to be presentable and be available through cell phones so that people are able to call them and so they can have repeat customers. My techniques worked for them.

In 6 months time, I had a million rupee plus business. My apartment was totally renovated and I had 4 people working for me in the house. Cooking for me, cleaning - providing security. I never bought a car. I had my own personal taxi driver who had customized the car for me. On call 24 hours, he worked ONLY for me. I bought all my staff cell phones and had a special number on the landline for me apart from two other cell numbers.

I shared my success with those Snake Charmers and "Bhangis." I got love from my country. Every man and woman was ready to support me with what they had. I was more successful than many people working in big companies. I had many high up people in all industries visiting me in my little apt. Finally, I was getting invitations to the Governor’s house on special occasions. I was getting guests from all over the world, CEOs and Directors - who came just because I told them- Nothing beats Pakistan. Come and see how I do it here!

I had proved my point. No young man can come to me and say Pakistan does not offer opportunity. Had I been raised IN Pakistan, I would have done a lot more. I did all this within 1 year of being in Pakistan for the first time. HOW? I taught people how to live in my own country. I proved to them how it can be a paradise for them if they would just apply themselves a bit more.

Yes go abroad. Please do go. Go when invited. Don’t beg to go. Let them BEG you to come. Hold your head up high for the sake of God. I did not leave karachi until I was BEGGED and paid a HANDSOME amount to come back to Saudi to resolve a legal issue that someone close to me had. This amount was paid by a Saudi - I was requested by a Saudi. And today, I run my global company which operates in 9 countries.

Friends, I started from the streets of my homeland, my Karachi - my place of birth. No other country and no other person has claim to it. I never worked in a foreign land. I Paid other countries from my millions of Rupees that I made in the comfort of my own land. I did not steal or cheat. I was not cheated. If I can do it, you can do it. And today at age 36, I sit here ready to give strategy to any Pakistani man or woman to get their success in their own home and then go out to the world and enjoy what they please. Not the other way round.

The challenge I took up motivated hundreds of Pakistani families living here to send their children back home to study, live and learn. They gave preference to Pakistan. They spent their money on their own home and not some other land where they will always be the second class citizens.

I proved my point. No one can argue with that! Thank you my beloved land and my beloved people!