Caring and sharing for the elderly, including those educationally, professionally, and intellectually excelling, one may discover some wavering in thoughts, others in speech, or both. Here one needs to humbly and gently gauge and extract the essence and meaning of their talk rather than form opinion on the harshness and strictness of their tone. Deep inside they are very loving, caring, and helping.
Down the memory lane, interviewed few years ago, Syed Mohammad Ali, then 90, now 95 plus MashaAllah, first batch MBA of IBA, 1957, meant IT or Computers were lmportant but needed to stay subordinate to God-gifted original and natural human potential not to be undermined, rusted and wasted by man-made and modern instruments and gadgetry.
When Syed Mohammad Ali alarmed that there was a world of difference between the wild west and our values, customs and traditions, he meant to be honest and realistic rather than anti west as he himself studied and applied western concepts of business management and international trade.
Amid tearing social fabric, he urged parents and elders to be trend-setters in moral and ethical values according to our ideology and objective conditions as a matter of opinion, not confrontation.
Syed Mohammad Ali, a cotton specialist, was Director, Pakistan Central Cotton Committee for over three decades and after retirement joined as Secretary Karachi Cotton Association, the hub of cotton marketing activity. He woked as a model of simplicity, piety and honesty and a trend-setter in best practices of marketing and management indeed.
He was a helping boss, setting trends in office discipline and decorum, coming first to office and leaving last from office. He was a widely traveled man as a marketing professional, especially in connection with cotton marketing across Pakistan, to Western Europe and North Africa.
He advises young entrepreneurs that the key to professional credibility and profitability lies in client and customer satisfaction through business ehics and morality.
Syed Mohammad Ali is mutually happily and devotedly married to Shakila Begum. The couple is very old, weak, sick and reside in Bhadarabad, Karachi.
