Eighty eight kilometers south of Islamabad near Chakwal is a small town called Bhaun. It was here in 1898 that the father of Indian hospitality industry was born.
Rai Bahadur Mohan Singh Oberoi was orphaned when he was six months old. Although his widowed mother had meager resources, she encouraged her son to study in the village school and later in Rawalpindi. He however, could not continue his education after intermediate due to lack of finances.
Oberoi began his career as a bell-boy at Cecil hotel Shimla when after two years, in 1922, he was offered a job as a clerk at rupees 50 per month.
The diligence, enthusiasm and intelligence displayed by Mr. Oberoi impressed the manager of the hotel. A quick learner, Mr. Oberoi did not restrict his efforts to fulfilling the job description of a desk clerk but sought and shouldered additional responsibilities. A few years later, when Mr. Clarke acquired a small hotel he asked Mr. Oberoi to assist him. It was here, at Clarkes Hotel, that Mr. Oberoi gained first hand experience in all aspects of operating a hotel.
Within two years, he assisted the Cecil's manager, Mr. Clarke, in purchasing the Carlton Hotel (renamed Clarkes) in Shimla, and ten years later, in 1934, upon Clarke's retirement, he mortgaged his wife’s jewellery and obtained a loan from his uncle to purchase the hotel.
Oberoi later specialized in buying run-down or undervalued properties and renovating them, with meticulous attention to detail, into luxury accommodations.
Within years, he would own Cecil and Corstophans hotels in Shimla, Maidens and Imperial hotels in Delhi, Faletti’s in Lahore, Cecil’s in Murree, and Flashman’s in Rawalpindi. In 1965, in a partnership with international hotel chains, he opened the Oberoi Intercontinental in Delhi, India's first five-star, world-class hotel.
Today the Oberoi Group, employs more than 12,000 people worldwide. It also owns and manages about thirty hotels and five luxury cruisers. Other activities of the Group include airline catering, management of restaurants and airport bars, travel and tour services, car rental, project management and corporate air charters.
The Group has a number of hotels worldwide, latest hotel additions being in Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Sri lanka, Nepal, Egypt and Africa.
Initiative, resourcefulness and hard work, combined with the capability to face and overcome the most overwhelming odds characterize phenomenal entrepreneurs like Mohan Singh Oberoi!
Mohan Singh Oberoi’s achievements and successes did not, however, affect his simplicity and old-fashioned charm. He retained, until his death in May 2002, a unique humility.
He was fond of saying, “I have been able to accept the challenge and make good. There is comfort in knowing that whatever little I have achieved has also helped to raise the prestige of my country.”
Courtesy:
Waseem Altaf
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