It has now been ten years since we returned to India after an exciting and enjoyable stint in Ghana. We had moved there in 1997 as official distributors for Sony Corporation to introduce the Sony Brand in Ghana. The Sony Brand was not officially represented in Ghana and existed only in the Grey Market. We brought the brand to Ghana and oversaw the establishment of several Sony Centres, bringing them from the ground up to high-end multiple stores in the best malls of Ghana. In 1997, we started with just the bare minimum capital required to comply with the investment laws of Ghana, it was enough to start one store, but things went well and we were able to increase the store count with most of the expansion coming from internal resources generated. It was something to be proud of. Our Sony Centres made Sony a well-established brand in Ghana, a brand to be trusted. Over the years, our customer base included several celebrities, top bureaucrats, Members of Parliament and their families and our passion and dedication were well appreciated.
There are some pictures below showing the evolution of the Sony Centres.
Our decision to start moving out of Ghana was not abrupt, not like the overnight one to leave Nigeria in 1995. For a start, we were 15 years older. In May 2009, Daddy passed away and as fast as I could come from Accra, I still could not reach home in time for his final rites. That did not go down well with me. I had already spent 12 Years at the helm in Accra and whatever one might say, taking the Sony Centres to still higher levels would have needed a lot more effort and dynamism than I was now prepared to put in. Further, it had always been abundantly clear that at the end of the day, it was to India that we were going to return to settle and all our preparations had been with that intent. We had acquired a nice large apartment in one of the premium housing societies of Greater Noida, close enough to Noida where my mother lived, yet far enough for all of us to have our own space. So the thought kept occurring, not that there are any problems, but still, how many more years are we going to stretch it here? Would I want to return to India when I’m too old to enjoy myself there? In 2010 I would turn 60 and I thought that would be an appropriate landmark target date for me to retire and head back home. There was still a year to go, and I decided to let Karan know my decision so he could plan accordingly. In the past, whenever the topic of a succession plan for Ghana had come up, it was always glossed over, as something that needs to be done but it’s not imminent. This time I explained to Karan that I was serious about returning to India, that we are no longer the thirty-year-olds we were in Nigeria, that time is catching up on all of us and that includes you as well, so this issue should now be taken up with some urgency. In Nigeria too we had already lost a few good people, Nigerians as well as young expatriates, to various tragedies, and Karan too had begun to realize the unpredictability of life. He understood that this issue can not be ignored much longer. A succession plan is now important.
I had been working with Karan since 1980. Naturally, a great level of trust and understanding had been established between us in these thirty years. To find someone like that whom he could trust wasn’t going to happen overnight. At that time Karan was operating close to 30 Sony Centres in London and so was able to identify a person from his pool, a young man, around 45, who was working as a Manager in one of his stores. He was of Indian origin with a British Residency, and his wife worked at the same store too, so they could also be a husband-wife team, like Tiny & me. Karan sent him on a trip to Ghana where he saw for himself the operations, and he was delighted to accept the offer to move to Ghana. A promotion from Manager to Managing Director is not something to be frowned upon. In any case, expatriate assignments in Africa are always lucrative as they are considered hardship postings. Good furnished houses, entire staff from drivers to house-helps, multiple cars, usually SUVs, all expenses paid and a good remuneration (tax-free in your hands) on top of it all. It’s a good deal no doubt. But then people forget that a lot of hard work, responsibility, and the ability to deal with all kinds of situations from the simple to the complex is also part of the package. Add to that the need to keep the business growing, to keep your principals and your customers happy, and still be profitable. As they say, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Once decided, my successor, came to Accra for familiarization and I showed him how we worked. Sadly, his attitude was both arrogant and condescending. Perhaps he felt his having made it as a UK Resident and coming from London gave him superiority over other Asians and Africans. He would only talk about how our merchandising, advertising, marketing, our local human resources (many of them had been with us for years), and even our accounting and inventory software was all ‘rubbish’, and how he would need to fix it his way. In all these years neither Karan nor Sony had ever talked about our setup in this ludicrous manner. It was somewhat disheartening but amusing too at the same time. Frankly, we were now at a stage (and at an age) where it made very little difference what anybody said, least of all a small boy like him. Then again, he had worked with Karan for many years, so my expressing any unfavorable opinion may not necessarily have been taken in the right spirit. It would have to be Karan’s call. Our focus at this time was on moving back to our new home in India and being with family, hence our priority was to keep the transition as smooth and amicable as possible and our exit hassle-free. When the duo finally came to take over the reins, I handed over in a matter of days, and while it was expected that I would stay for a few weeks to oversee the succession, I could see he was anxious to take over as the Big Boss ASAP. As for my part, I was not particularly keen on hand-holding an unwilling and immature person either. We preponed our departure from Ghana by about a month, kept ourselves busy with our packing, and stayed away from office except only as really necessary. Managing an enterprise holistically is no child’s play and requires a great level of skill and vision. Unfortunately, his model of operation was a downright failure. The smoothly running profit-making organization he inherited could not be kept alive. For a while, the momentum we had created kept the business going but it wasn’t going to last forever. In just 5 years, the entire capital of the company including all the reserves we had accumulated over the years were completely wiped out under his watch. The company had to downsize its stores, then shut some of them and finally close them all and exit the country to avoid further losses. Tiny & I had never been boastful about our work, we were modest and kept a low profile, but that does not undermine our successes which Karan continues to appreciate even till today.
On 10th September 2011, a few weeks before my 61st birthday, we boarded our Emirates Flight from Accra and headed for Delhi. It had been a good tenure in Ghana, very satisfying, but we were now ready to put it behind us and begin a new phase of our lives at home in India. Interior work at our new apartment at ATS Paradiso had been going on slowly for the past year, ever since the timeline for our return had been finalized. Major furniture, soft furnishings, air conditioners, and other home and kitchen gadgets would still need to be done after we returned but since we were already fairly clear on what we needed, it didn’t take overly long. Still, it took about a year or two for us to really find our feet and settle down and in early 2012 I also had cataract surgery for both my eyes.
An automobile was also an absolute necessity and after having driven a Honda CRV for almost my entire stay in Ghana, I simply walked into the Honda Showroom and picked up an off-the-shelf Automatic Drive Honda City without considering too many other options or brands. It didn’t turn out to be that great a choice, just a little research would have thrown up many better cars, but no complaints. I used the Honda City for about three years, then changed to a Ford EcoSport, an SUV which I really enjoyed driving for about five years, and then recently upgraded to the newest high-tech Kia Seltos. I continue to keep updating my cars and my phones on a regular basis.
Karan, of course, was not ready to part so cleanly so soon, so for a couple of years, I kept getting invited to all the Sony Business Planning Meetings in Dubai. I used to attend these earlier as Country Head for Ghana and was given due respect accordingly as per protocol. Now I was no longer an official invitee, which suited me, so I attended some informal sessions as an observer, and it was more of a social visit for me. I did not want to undermine my successor’s role as the new Head of Ghana Operations, which I may have once been, but was no longer. It was only fair that he should now be seen in the position, just as I had been for all the past years. One reason why Karan used to invite me was so that if the new person had any queries, he could discuss them in person with me. But he really had no desire to turn to me for any suggestions or advice and would do so reluctantly only if Karan really insisted that he check with me on certain issues and understand how they are handled. His wife, on the other hand, showed no such hesitation and her aim was quite unambiguous – to continue the work in the same time-proven manner in which it was being done earlier, by understanding how it was being done, no point in trying to re-invent the wheel. She would call me on phone regularly and I was happy to walk her through many of the procedures that I had been following, vet her reports before they were finalized and submitted, brief her on various issues as they arose, refer her to some of the contacts I had made over the years, and generally assist her wherever I could whenever she asked. Assisting someone who appreciates your help and is grateful for it is never an issue. She had no ego issues and she was a smart learner. She soon got the hang of her part of the job, and then my consent or ratification was no longer routinely necessary. I was still copied in on many matters for information only, but that’s about it. She was managing very well and it was only when there was something really sticky that she would call me, to tell me how she proposed to handle it and whether it was okay. It usually was. Even now, even after having left Ghana, she still calls me occasionally to greet both of us.
At around the same time, Karan also opened Kare International – a Free Zone Establishment Company in Dubai and invited me to move there to take care of it. I politely declined. I now wanted to be in India and while I would be happy to assist him in any way working from here, I did not wish to shift base. Why would I leave Ghana otherwise? So here I am, still working for his Dubai Company, assisting him in record keeping and financial matters. It doesn’t take more than a couple of hours a week, it keeps the connection between him and me going, and the work is completely stress-free. WFH is now an accepted practice, so it doesn’t really matter where one is located, especially in a digitally advanced country like UAE.
We are both rather fond of traveling, I love to drive and while we were abroad we had had several opportunities to travel extensively through Europe (self-drive mostly) and to South Africa. On the other hand, there was very little of India that we had seen. And there is so so much to see in India. One resolve we made was to try and travel as much through our beautiful India as we could manage. As luck would have it, Honda referred me to Club Mahindra during a promotion and when we attended it, it seemed like a very good idea to take a membership and use that to travel through India. We signed up for their basic membership right away, at the presentation itself, and also made our first trip – complimentary – with them to Udaipur soon after. It was a good experience. We confirmed our membership upon our return and have since upgraded to their highest membership level – Purple – which ensures we get the highest priority and choices while making reservations in their resorts. Our next trip was to Gangtok, another trip we thoroughly enjoyed. We thought we should start by visiting their far-out resorts now, who knows whether we’ll be up to doing them as we age. Thereafter we visited Kerala, this time with my sister Nira. Over the years we have traveled to their resorts in, Ashtamudi, Coorg, Mussoorie, Sikkim, Munnar, Thekkady, Madurai, Ooty, Kodaikanal, Srinagar (they even have a Houseboat there) among others. We have also traveled to Amritsar, Darjeeling, Rishikesh, Varanasi, Ladakh; we have self-driven to Vrindavan, Agra, Alwar, Sariska, Bhangarh, Jim Corbett, Naukuchiyatal, visiting some of them more than once With Tiny’s mother staying in Dehradun, we drive there every few weeks. Just before Covid struck, Tiny & I and Nira spent an awesome time in Bangkok and Chiang Mai. As a passionate photographer, I have managed to take some memorable pictures during our travels and many of them are part of this blog. Oh yes. I also managed to find time to create a blog for myself as a gallery for my photographs. Most of it is a travelogue but it does have those occasional snippets from my life and times as well. Now that Covid has put a bit of a stop to travel, I hope to find more time to keep adding to it.
Fitness and health cannot be ignored but not being active Gym or Sports enthusiasts, we have taken to long walks. We try to be doing it regularly, on a daily basis if possible when we are here. Be it Summer or Winter, we usually start very early in the morning, before daybreak, so then we are free for the rest of the day to do what we want, go wherever we want. Good Time Management has also given me time to do some additional online courses to hone my knowledge in various interests like Photoshop, Finance, Excel, and Writing. I’ve also done an Advanced Diploma in Photography, I tried studying to be a Life Coach too but gave up quite quickly. I need to do something that I can do at my own pace without pressure.
Many of my friends who were with me in Nigeria and are probably around my own age, keep asking me the same question – now that you are retired, how do you pass your time, what is your routine now? Well, I really don’t know. We lead a disciplined life, there is a pattern to our day-to-day activities, yet there is no fixed routine and that is the general idea. Each day is happily full and brings about its own assignments, things to be done, books to be read, movies to be seen, afternoon siestas to be indulged in, the daily nightcaps sometimes impromptu with friends, sometimes independently, in fact, you do what you what when you want. All the same, life does not run on its own and even if you are not employed with an organization on a full-time basis, many similar things still need to be done. You still have to meet with bankers, advisors, estate agents and make sure your finances and assets are being kept in order. In the absence of a fixed salary, this is most important. You still need to run a house, pay bills, read, watch TV, and these things need your time. There are social engagements, with family, with friends, by yourselves, and they also need time. Many of my friends who were reluctant to retire because they couldn’t figure out how they would be able to pass their time are now having to retire perforce either due to health or medical issues or due to their employers realizing that these aging individuals need to be replaced with more efficient youngsters. Others who left willingly while still able to enjoy their days of work-free relaxation are now telling me that it is my example they have emulated. How I’m living life to the full, indulging in pleasures and happy doing what I want to, and they now wish they had done the same some years earlier.
As for me, it is now slightly over ten years since I came back, voluntarily unemployed. How these ten years have passed and what I have done on a daily basis is difficult to explain. Just as it is equally difficult to explain what you have been doing on a day-to-day basis even when you were working. Except perhaps on your CV when you are looking for a job.
Some great memories from our ten years of retirement are in the photo gallery below:
Ten years after
All I know is that these years have passed beautifully, our health and finances have both stood with us so far and for that we express our sincere gratitude to God. For his blessings, while we were working and for his blessings once we are not working anymore.