Big boys play for keeps

Anis Sajan, cricket enthusiast, Bollywood fan, and managing director of the Danube Group, believes in not resting on laurels and batting out the long haul

What strikes you immediately about Anis Sajan, managing director of the Danube Group, is how unapologetic he is calling a spade a spade. Sitting behind his "office desk", in the sprawling Danube complex housed in the dusty industrial area of Jebel Ali, he displays none of the political correctitude many of his ilk would have up their sleeve. For instance, he talks, engagingly, about how as a Eureka Forbes salesman in Bombay - in the early 90s - he would have to, many times, offer a cigarette to a watchman so he could gain access into a building for him to ring doorbells and try

and sell an Aquaguard unit. "Pataane ka formula seekh liya maine [I learnt the art of how to win someone over]," he laughs easily, and admits it's something that's stood him in good stead.

He and Danube - the company spearheaded by elder brother Rizwan, a man he credits with "making me what I am today" - have come a long way since those salad days. Anis, who helms Milano, the sanitary division of Danube, has now evolved into, in his words, a "businessman with a passion for sports and a Bollywood keeda". (Keeda translates into insect, more a parasite.)

His office is a showcase of a lot of trophies and plaques, I observe. "All for cricketing glory," his eyes light up. In the UAE, he's owned an indoor cricket team, an outdoor one, has hired employees only for their cricketing skills and cannot stop smiling as he recalls the 'big names' of today who were nurtured in the Danube cricketing fold. names like Yasir Shah, Asad Shafiq and Fakhar Zaman, who are now superstars in the international arena. (Recently, he was the mentor for the Indian team at the indoor World Cup held in the UAE.) And, as if to cement Anis's passion for the sport, Danube has just appointed cricket captain Sarfraz Ahmed the brand ambassador for the Pakistan market.

Did he ever dream of being a cricketer? "I'll be lying if I said no! In India [he grew up in Bombay], everyone dreams of playing cricket. My obsession with the game started in 1983, when India won the World Cup. That's when I took up street cricket." He is candid enough to say he wasn't "good enough" for outdoor cricket, so he tried his hand at the indoor version. And, in the end, he was just happy that "my boys gave me results". He continues to live the dream vicariously.

"You know, MS Dhoni is my all-time favourite cricketer because he's a team player; he showed us that team spirit is more important than personal glory. I've always maintained a captain is only as good as his team."

In 1990, Anis was 18, a middle-class, "fun-loving college boy" in Bombay, when Rizwan - the person who he, for all purposes, considers the captain of his own 'life' innings - "pulled" him to Kuwait. "My brother was working in the sales department in my uncle's company there, and he felt it was time for me to start working, to learn how to be 'responsible'." Eight months after he landed, Saddam Hussain invaded Kuwait. "I had no idea what 'invasion' meant [in a geopolitical context], so when, one morning, around 8am, Rizwan called to inform me there's been an 'invasion' and that he was coming to fetch me, my first question to him was, 'Bro, what's an invasion?'" (He remembers that when Rizwan reached his workplace, the first thing the two of them did was to rush to a supermarket to buy groceries; they had to stock up.)

The next couple of months turned out to be, as he puts it today, "very interesting". The Iraqi occupation was unfolding, all offices had suspended operations, fear rent the air - but, according to Rizwan, that wasn't reason enough for work to come to a standstill.

"My brother has lived by a single motto: Duniya mein jeena hain toh kaam karo pyaare [if you want to survive in this world, then get to work], so he immediately spotted a business opportunity: selling petrol. all gas stations were closed, and people were looking for petrol."

And yes, Rizwan also told him upfront, "Thoda paisa kamayenge [we'll be able to make some money]."

"Have you watched Airlift [the Bollywood film where Akshay Kumar's character lends a much-needed helping hand to the Indian community in Kuwait during the occupation]?" Anis asks me.

"Yes," I say.

"Well, there's a similarity between what happened in Airlift and what happened to us then. As part of Rizwan's humanitarian effort, I was made to sit in the Indian Embassy - there were about 2 million Indians in Kuwait - and take down messages for people who wanted to wire them to family and friends back home. Rizwan would then drive to Basra, which was five hours - and many dangerous checkpoints - away; there was a functioning post office in Basra and he would personally send those telegrams from there."

(FAMILY MAN: Anis with wife Ruby, and their sons Azhar and Sahil)

One day, Rizwan had taken off for Basra; his wife, their one-year-old son and Anis were at home, when the building opposite theirs was attacked by Iraqi soldiers. "We saw people being shot down with our own eyes." That was when "we decided it was time to flee". The Indian government had, meanwhile, arranged for Air Force aircraft, "so we drove down to Basra to catch a flight".

The family returned to Bombay, where Anis joined direct selling company Eureka Forbes, best known for Aquaguard, the water purifier. The company had a team of salesmen - I still remember the popular TVC of the 'friendly' Eureka Forbes salesman - that went door to door. In the 1990s, purified water was a nascent concept in India. It needed hard sell. And hard sell was what Anis delivered. "See, it's very simple: when you do sales, you can't be coy. if four people slam the door shut in your face, one would eventually let you in. You have to keep at it."

His 'target' was to sell three water purifiers a day. His day would start at 7am. "The whole team was given a briefing, every day, and then we'd fan out to sell units. My workday ended at 9pm, and by then, I needed to have sold the required number of units..." He points out he was "lucky" because he got a prime area in his pocket: Worli Sea Face. Later, he snagged Bandra. There, he once rang a doorbell without knowing the house belonged to (then reigning star) Sanjay Dutt. "Sanjay Dutt was in a good mood, so he offered me water - and that was the cue for me to get started on the water purifier pitch."

So, was he able to sell Sanjay Dutt an Aquaguard?

"Yes," he exults at the throwback.

Anis was making a neat package in Bombay, thanks to him overachieving targets. "I was earning Rs20,000-25,000 a month - which was huge at that time."

Meanwhile, in 1992, Rizwan moved to Dubai, to scope out the market. "He realised," says Anis, "he needed somebody he could trust blindly to help him set up shop."

That's how Anis left Bombay, yet again; this time to come to Dubai. "And that's how Danube started, with two of us and one clerk in an office in Deira, on Baniyas Street," he reflects. He says the first day he landed in Dubai, Rizwan took him to Kamat restaurant for a masala dosa and a tour of the market areas in Bur Dubai. "It was his way to assure me I won't miss Bombay [he used to miss Bombay terribly when he was in Kuwait] and all its delights: everything was available here - so I better not be homesick."

There was no looking back. "We had Dh100,000 in our pockets - which was nothing if you thought of the scale of operations we had in mind - but because my brother had notched up such amazing goodwill in Kuwait, his creditability was immense," Anis says, while, in my head, I mix up 'creditability' with 'credibility'. "We got goods on credit, and that's how we built Danube." Ground up. "From two products, we now have 30,000 products in our portfolio. from three people to 3,000 employees working in the three divisions: building materials, home, and properties."

Along the way, Milano, his corporate baby, was born. "I used to attend exhibitions and fairs all over the world for procurement. I'd gone to Milan, the city of fashion and cutting-edge design, and wanted to have a brand named after it. I somehow felt that the name would be assurance for quality."

He doesn't rule out the possibility of some day becoming a film producer. (My query to whether he'd consider acting was met with "Nah, there are so many more smarter hunks than me!"). "Maybe I'll produce a film on the life of my brother, like a biopic, like there were these biopics on Dhoni and Tendulkar. Actually, like Guru [referring to the Mani Ratnam film, based - partly - on the life of Dhirubhai Ambani]. Shah Rukh Khan would be my first choice to play the lead. like Rizwan and myself, he's also come up the hard way. plus, of course, he's a great actor."

For the time being, he's content with making 'home productions' for 'special occasions': short clips featuring him "in and as" Don and Raees. Deewar - the Amitabh Bachchan-Shashi Kapoor-starrer - is his all-time favourite film. "Two brothers, just like me and Rizwan. except that the only deewar [wall] between us is the office one," he jokes.

He makes no bones of his love for Rizwan. "He's my role model," he says affectionately, "and I know it's a strange thing to say - but I can't live without him." Does he tell Rizwan that? "Whenever I can - which is often. You know," he continues, "I am actually a very lazy person compared to my brother. he's a workaholic. I get concerned about his health." Anis, speaking for himself, swears by yoga; yoga - one and a half hours of it daily, unfailingly - has helped him find balance in life and "control" over his mind. Yes, work:life balance is very important. "I make it a point to spend time with my kids and wife in the evenings, play a hand of chess, go for a movie over the weekend..."

He credits his wife, Ruby, for keeping him and his two sons Azhar and Sahil ["Rizwan chose their names, and yes, Azhar was named after Azharuddin!"] - aged 19 and 16 - grounded to a level playing field. "It's critical for them to be grounded because they are the next generation, the future. What's more, my wife's never complained about my love for cricket, and has always encouraged me, so I'm always grateful to her."

Cricket is his favourite thing in the world, he adds. Straight off the bat. Maybe that's why when he's wrapping up the interview, the cricketing analogy comes up again. "I know the sky's the limit for Danube, but we can't afford to sit on our laurels. We are like the Aussie team: we have to continue being champs, not lose our way."

sushmita@khaleejtimes.com

• WKND