Dinshaw Avari- Trying my Hand at Blogging!

  Sept 16, 2020   (9 of 12)   REPLY ADDRESS BY MR. DINSHAW B AVARI ON THE OCCASION TO COMMEMORATE HIS 85 th  BIRTHDAY on NOV 5, 1987-     “ God has been kind to me.   I made money from Beach Luxury Hotel and eventually bought a Hotel in Lahore (Nedous Hotel) on Public auction which I converted from Nedous Hotel to Park Luxury - and I was about to convert it to build the Lahore Hilton.   By this time, my son Byram & I had discussed whether we were content in running the Beach Luxury or wanted to grow (and naturally we chose the latter).     This then propelled me to say that success does not come without pains or losses...    The Beach Luxury in the 50s and early 60s (when we spoke), made its money through cash sales which were not recorded because of the high taxation- and actually became our capital.  We agreed that firstly we have to bring all our businesses on the books because without a strong bal...

  August 18, 2020   (8 of 12)   REPLY ADDRESS BY MR. DINSHAW B AVARI ON THE OCCASION TO COMMEMORATE HIS 85 th  BIRTHDAY on NOV 5, 1987-   “ Beach Luxury Hotel started construction, Partition took place, and the Sind Government once again requisitioned my Hotel. They said that as a Minority Member I will run away and they needed the building for Government Offices. This was somewhere around December 1947, and I gave them a written assurance that I will open the Hotel by our Zoroastrian New Year, 21st of March 1948. One week before the Opening, I had no furniture, cutlery, crockery or glassware.   Always, in my times of problems, God has come to my rescue. I believe in intuition and like the time when I left Quetta the night before the fatal earthquake - because of my intuition - I was once again intuitively led to read every inch of the newspaper that day.   I saw this advertisement of the British United Services Club, which was called the Bus...

May 26, 2020 REPLY ADDRESS BY MR. DINSHAW B AVARI ON THE OCCASION TO COMMEMORATE HIS 85 th  BIRTHDAY on NOV 5, 1987- (5 of 12)   “ Mahatma Gandhi who made the British leave the Country, by his policy of non-violence, non-cooperation, asked all the Indians to stop insuring any foreign Life Insurance Companies. The result was that my business dwindled to such an extent that I had to make heavy inroads in my capital.  By 1945, I wanted to change the line of work.   Mr Wyseman was a friend of mine, and he was the Proprietor of the Bristol Hotel. My darling wife Khorshed used to like to eat English Food and so off and on, we went and had our meals there.   He told me that the British had decided to leave India and he would like to sell his hotel. He wanted Rs. 1 Lac for all the stock, name and fame, furniture, crockery, cutlery, glassware, linen, etc. but not the building which was a hired property from a Bori and a Hindu jointly.   In those days, th...

April 26, 2020 REPLY ADDRESS BY MR. DINSHAW B AVARI ON THE OCCASION TO COMMEMORATE HIS 85 th  BIRTHDAY on NOV 5, 1987- (4 of 12) “ Next day I went to Dr. Kanga's house for lunch and I was surprised to find that his wife had a boutique from which she was earning Rs. 100/- per month. After lunch, I asked her if she would instead like to earn over Rs.300/- per month. I trained her as an Insurance Agent for only one day. The next day, she brought insurance of Rs. 50,000/- from Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto, the Grandfather of Miss Benazir Bhutto and earned a commission of Rs. 1500/- at the first shot. I had all the Punjabi and Parsi Agents in Karachi working for me and all did very good business and made very good money. I sent for my younger brother Rathan from Bombay to come and stay with me where he was attending a College, and as my Father had asked me to look after him because when my mother died he was only One year old. I got a two-bedroomed flat at a rent of Rs. 50/- per...

March 13, 2020 REPLY ADDRESS BY MR. DINSHAW B AVARI ON THE OCCASION TO COMMEMORATE HIS 85 th  BIRTHDAY on NOV 5, 1987- (3 of 12) (Vita steamship- Photo credit- https://picclick.co.uk/CANARA-1942-British-India-Steam-Navigation-Co-cargo-233507144190.html ) “ I accepted Karachi because I used to read articles on the Late Mr. Jamshed Mehta in the Jam-e-Jamshed and was highly impressed. He asked me in how many days I would like to go over and open the Karachi )Office. I told him within 48 hours I would go to Karachi, as I require one day to go to Udvada and Navsari for Prayers and for meeting my relations and friends and the next day I would go to Karachi. He told me that the Manager's Agreement require  at least 8 days to be made ready, signed, stamped and completed and therefore, I could go within 10 days. This Offer was a God sent gift to me. When coming to Karachi, I travelled by Steamer 'VITA' in the first class, and I became acquainted with Mr. Pesi, So...

(2 of 13) REPLY ADDRESS BY MR. DINSHAW B AVARI ON THE OCCASION TO COMMEMORATE HIS 85 th BIRTHDAY on NOV 5, 1987- “ I want to tell you that I was very ambitious and hard-working and I used to go down to an  Irani  Restaurant after office hours, sit at a table and would call the people in the room to come and have Tea and biscuits with me (at my cost of course). Remember that the charges for this was One Anna per person. Round about 10 persons used to join me every day and I used to give them a lecture on the advantages of Life Insurance. Do you know that, by my offering them tea and Biscuits and giving them lectures, seven persons out ten would agree to insure their lives with me and the very next day, I used to take them to Doctor Adi Kohiyar, the leading physician of Bombay in the early morning at 7.00 a.m. for Life Assurance Examination. This tactic of mine resulted in generating the largest amount of Life Assurance sold in any one month, in the whole of Bombay Pr...