To begin with,
Hello friends! I am Dhananjay Mahadev Datar, CMD, Al Adil Group, UAE Bahrain,Oman Saudi Arabia & India. I am delighted to have an opportunity to interact with you through this upcoming series of articles. I would like to thank the editorial board of Bahrain This Week for extending their support for it.
I was asked to write about my entrepreneurial journey and the lessons I learned from it. Let me candidly confess that I am not an experienced or skilled author. But since I have taken up a mission to guide the budding generation about entrepreneurship, I will surely not miss any chance to motivate them.
Actually, I am an accidental entrepreneur. I never imagined and pictured myself to be in the business field. On the other hand I had cherished an immature ambition in my teenage to go abroad for any job that would make me rich instantly. But destiny had some other plans for me. Business itself became my Guru and pulled me towards him. It transformed me from a small shopkeeper to a successful businessman.
My life journey has not travelled in a linear direction. It has many surprising curves similar to a movie story. It always amuses me and gives rise to many queries in my mind. How was the seed of entrepreneurship unexpectedly sown in a working class family, having no background of business? How and why did I become an accidental entrepreneur when actually my inclination was towards job hunting? Why did destiny shower a fortune on me when I was on the verge of ruin? How could I weave a chain of 42 super stores from a single grocery shop? Why did business play the role of a staunch teacher in my life, tasting my endurance and then bestowing such virtues and business skills I never expected to acquire on my own? I don’t have the answers for these coincidences.
Through this column I intend to share some of my interesting life experiences and memories, my journey from India to UAE and also from poverty to prosperity. I hope you will like these stories.