Like Father, Like Son?

By Noorilhuda –

M. P. Bhandara’s son Isphanyar takes the family legacy forward

Baby-faced Isphanyar looks younger than his forty years; He is far more cynical than a successful businessman should be, more abrasive than a humanitarian ought to be and more upfront than a politician usually is. He uses short sentences to complete big thoughts, rarely smiles unless the occasion demands it, never looks relaxed and has an air of a man with too much to prove in too less time. Carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, he knows he has big shoes to fill.

After all, his father, M.P. Bhandara, is a tough act to follow.

Bhandara Sr. inherited a thriving liquor empire at just 21 and expanded it to contain a food and beverage division, maneuvering his way through three military dictators, two Bhuttos and one Zardari, all the while managing to keep the business open. In nearly every available picture, personal or professional, the man has a big wide smile to go along with the large frames on his face. He was an accomplished columnist and philanthropist. He was well-liked, even by people who disagreed with him politically. For a shrewd businessman to achieve the love – and not the suspicion – of the common people is an achievement in itself. By 2008, Murree Brewery Company’s turnover was well into billions of rupees.

That year, M.P. Bhandara died, leaving the younger son in charge of the business, the older son being mentally-challenged. At 35, Isphanyar, had already lived quite a life. He studied at St. Mary’s School Rawalpindi and American School Islamabad before finishing his FA in Texas. He did his bachelors back home at Sir Syed College Rawalpindi, because he didn’t like living in US without his family and friends, upsetting his father who wanted him to stay there for 5-10 years.

“My relationship with my father was more professional than personal. He was more like a boss and he was a strict boss,” he says. “He did not let me get spoilt.” A fact that is echoed by Maj. (R) Sabih-ur-Rehman, who goes by the title of Special Assistant to the Chief Executive – that’s Isphanyar – but has been an integral part of the business for the last 17 years. “His father was a friend, so when I retired he told me to come on board,” says Maj. (R) Sabih who was stationed in Gujranwala during Indo-Pak War of ’71, “His father gave him no privilege (of being the owner’s son), he was of the opinion that if you have to train, you should train properly.”

So, for 10 years till 2008, Isphanyar worked in different parts of the factory, as machine operator, as store keeper, as brewer, at the bottling area, in sales, procurement and his least favorite of it all – the laboratory analysis department. “His stick is what has made me who I am today”, he says. “If I had not had his training, this world would have made a lollipop out of me. That is the way of nature, everyone takes you for a ride if you are not clever.”

He started collecting classic old cars in 1998, an enduring passion, currently resting at ten, including 1972 MG British that he bought for Rs.3 lacs. He now convenes an exhibition of rare automobiles at his residence 1-2 times a year. He takes the cars for a spin all the way to the liquor factory near his residence. He writes occasional ‘letters to the editor’ on issues of commerce and environment. Unlike his father, he has less interest in books. His residence-office contains many bought by his father, few by him e.g. ‘Fatima Bhutto’s ‘Songs of Blood and Sword’ that he bought because “it was the trendy thing to do”.

By his own admission, he has no interest in arts or music, though he recently attended Man of Steel premiere at the Arena Cinema. He feigns brands. “I am above it all,” he says dismissively, wearing an over-sized coat.

He calls himself a social drinker, jibing that his favorite drink is water. “At my age, it doesn’t matter, what the favorite color is, or the favorite drink, whether one loves the wife or not.”

No member of his family has had or died of liver disease, and he brushes aside the side effects of alcohol addiction by adding “Can you stop people from eating rice? If Osama Bin Laden takes planes into a tower, does that make it the plane’s fault? There’s a saying that you can sit in mosques all day long but not learn anything of humanity. Excess of anything is bad.” His advice for drinkers is simple: “Only drink Murree Brewery products.”

He got married in 1999 to Jasmine Poonegar after a five-year long engagement. As he puts it, “It was not arranged, but it had to be a Parsi family or else my parents would have kicked me out of the house!” They take vacations abroad according to the schedule of international liquor exhibitions. For example, this September, he may take the family along or send a manager instead. A Daily Telegraph piece by Jonathan Foreman, dated 24th March 2012, calls Isphanyar ‘something of a playboy.’ When the piece is brought to his attention, he says “Which year?”, and learning it is of last year, he pauses, thinks and then says “No comment,” with the wedding ring firmly on his left hand finger.

He has two sons: Zane, 11 and Zal, 9. In the absence of his wife, he takes them to school and has lunch with them. And it looks like he wants them to get the hang of it from an early age too – joining him for functions with business and diplomatic dignitaries. He begs to differ. “I am buried till here (pointing to his neck) because I have family name and legacy to carry forward. If I had a choice, I would not have chosen to do this work. I would also tell my boys to pursue other things, and not set up industry. You become slaves to so many people as well as institutions, investors, Wapda etc.”

His father disliked Bhutto and Isphanyar is no different. After banning liquor from army messes in ’74, Bhutto’s actions in ’77 put a dent on Brewery’s profits. Bhutto was up for re-election and running an unpopular government. His detractors accused him of drinking, telling voters to not vote for a drunkard. Bhutto retaliated with a famous declaration at a Lahore jalsa ‘Yes, I drink, I work for 18 hours a day, so what if I drink a little? I don’t drink people’s blood.’ In trying to appease Islamic sentiment in a bad economy, Bhutto went on to banish easily available liquor from places. Exports were also banned during this time.

In an irony only possible in Pakistan, Zia-ul-Haq allowed the sale of liquor with a twist, it could only be sold to minorities – the same fundamentalist general who rebuffed Charlie Wilson, the senator bringing billions into Pakistan under CIA-covert operation that goes by the name of Afghan War, when he had asked for a drink in the Presidency. “My father convinced Zia that banning alcohol altogether would lead to bigger problems, frustration, heroin addiction etc.” He also gifted piece of MB Estate to Zia in early 80s. “Half of the current army house land belonged to us,” says Isphanyar, whose residence and alcohol factory, at National Park Road, are right opposite to one of the most protected homes in Pakistan.

His house is probably the only private civilian barcode in the area – though ISPR did not confirm it. The trucks bringing or taking MB goods are monitored but are not checked via bomb detector radar like every car, just a turn away at Jinnah Park. “We have never been asked to move (for being a security risk). No one can ask us that, this is not leased property, it is our land.”

When asked who amongst his neighbors he is close to, he says nonchalantly, “On my right side lives my mother, and on the left side, my general manager. They are my neighbors……but we are on good terms with everyone.”

Over the years, Pakistani population found a way to subvert the minorities-only alcohol rule, leading Bhandara Sr. to once comment that 99% of his customers were Muslims, and his son agrees: “It’s an open secret.” And though MB now even produces mineral water, it’s USP has always been liquor. It is safe to assume that most of it’s customers voted for PPP – it’s whiskey is sold more in interior Sindh and Karachi than anywhere else in Pakistan, especially VAT1 and Lime Whiskey. And in any financial year, 70% sales are of whiskey, 30% of the world-famous beer.

In various writings, Zia is fondly remembered by Bhandara Sr. as “charming, soft spoken ruler….Absolute power corrupted him less absolutely than others similarly placed”, while Bhutto is alternately remembered as ‘dictatorial’, ‘sadistic’ and even ‘fascist’. It didn’t help matters that Zardari tried to take over the company around Benazir’s second term (an account of which is given in The News Op-ed by M.P. Bhandara, 3rd Feb. 2008). Isphanyar goes one step further. “Batoo (emphasis entirely his)’s nationalization was disastrous. PPP’s politics is all about getting the laborers to fight the owners.”

In 2012, Fauzia Kasuri, a family friend, approached Isphanyar to join PTI. He decided on PML-N instead. “Nawaz Sharif has the personality and party experience. In the 90s, he was not given a chance to use that experience, now he can prove his worth.” When reminded that PML-N is seen as a conservative Taliban apologist party, he replies “PML-N is not a fundamentalist party. It has open-minded as well as narrow minded people, even those with less integrity.”

Unsurprisingly, he never got an offer from PPP, though many amongst them are his good acquaintances. He didn’t pick PML-Q, like his father had a decade earlier, because as he puts it, “How many people are left in that party anyways?!” Both father and son are Muslim Leaguers, nothing more, nothing less.

He may be new to politics, but that does not deter Isphanyar from making fun of senior Leaguers: “Parvez Rasheed called me to ask whether Bapsi Sidhwa was my relative. I said, she is my aunt. And he said ‘We wanted to give her Sitara-e-Imtiaz’, to which I replied,  ‘She already got one by Ghulam Ishaq Khan!’”

Murree Brewery Company’s liquor, glass and Tops divisions employ 1600-1700 employees in all. Labor requirement changes in ‘peak’ seasons for alcohol such as every festival like Eid, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Holi, etc. and for food & non-alcoholic beverages between February and August, and Ramazan. None of the workers is a Parsi. 10-15 are Christians and 1 is Hindu. There are 4-5 retired army officers. There are no foreign nationals employed on permanent basis though consultancy work is done by them. As to the lack of proper representation of minorities in the company, Maj. (R) Sabih offers an explanation: “We don’t hire people because of their religion, but whether they can do the work.”

Two workers left their job to go abroad because of country’s situation and Isphanyar is still waiting for the Spanish engineers who are refusing to come to Pakistan because of terrorism.

“We paid one lac Euros to get machinery from Spain, and now this has happened. I have taken the matter with the their Ambassador here…..but we have to own up the war, we cannot keep saying it is America’s war, but we should also not take dictation from anyone, and send clear signal to terrorists,” he says before adding the PML-N rhetoric-line, “We should talk to those who want to talk.”

In May 2013, Isphanyar became a PML-N MNA on the same seat his father served PML-Q. Six of the total 10 reserved minority seats are PML-N’s: 3 are Hindus, 2 Christians and he the only Parsi. His minority experience is privileged and different from that of other communities. Parsi community has neither seen the massacre that Ahmedis have, nor have their women been abducted and converted into Muslims ala Hindus, nor have their towns, places of worship and people desecrated like those of Christians. He has also not been ‘elected’ by popular vote to represent a section of Rawalpindi electorate. Isphanyar recognizes this. “We have not been religiously targeted. We certainly don’t live in rural areas where Hindu women get abducted. But as an MNA, my priority is to help people. I have received applications from Hindu, Sikh, Christians from far flung poverty-stricken areas, who want jobs…..People tell me I should talk like my father, but I feel I have only just started, I have to listen first, there are MNAs who have been in Parliament for 20-25 years. I have given my name for Committees on Defence, Interior and Minorities. Let’s see what happens.”

For now, he is part of a committee setup by Punjab CM Shahbaz Sharif, to investigate a recent poisonous liquor case in Faisalabad in which 23 people died. Three years ago, 3 Muslim journalists in Karachi lost their life, while two others were blinded when their dealer adulterated Murree Brewery dry gin. Creating liquor is an art form and quite common in a country where foreign (smuggled/ imported) and local (MB, Quetta and Karachi’s legal distilleries) are expensive or hard to come by, giving rise to countless illegal home-grown distilleries. Deaths are also common. Alternatively suggesting lifting the ban on liquor for Muslims, to putting greater curbs and checks on sale of raw alcohol ingredients to doctors, Isphanyar is still cynical about the results of the effort.

He also scoffs at the discretionary fund of Rs.58 lacs at his disposal for the current year. “I am building a dispensary out of my own pocket (land is Brewery’s) that is costing Rs.90 lacs. The cost to construct everything is so high, and yet the fund is merely Rs. 58 lacs.” He says he will not use the parliamentary money to complete the dispensary, rather breaking it down into Rs.5,000-10,000 as financial help for poorest of the poor.

He comes across as someone who wants his money’s worth, and is used to crunching numbers: “My pay as a parliamentarian is Rs.70,000! I spent lacs of rupees on just political ads!” Hence while he maybe effective as Chief Executive of a multi-million dollar business, it remains to be seen what impact, if any, he will have in Parliament.

Financially, MBC never looked better.

It’s Tops and Sparkletts division is a success because it is cheaper than products offered by competitors. Overall, the company made approx. Rs. 180 million in the quarter ending in March 2013. It has about 850-900 shareholders, earnings per share of Rs.8.40. It claims that retail price of a liquor bottle is cheaper than a soft drink! It’s the taxes that raise the market price of alcoholic beverages. More taxes are levied in Sindh than Punjab. It is smuggled to India, Afghanistan and was even found in the hands of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore’s daughter, caught for drunk driving, on the streets of California.

On paper, Ministry of Commerce lifted the ban on export of liquor to non-OIC countries last year, an approval that MBC has not exploited as yet for various provincial and technical reasons. As for opportunities in international franchising  for wines and spirits, MBC has been ‘announcing’ limited ventures for the last couple of years but nothing concrete or permanent has come to date.

Jugnu Mohsin, whose father, Chairman of Mitchells Fruit Farms, was a longtime business associate of Bhandara Sr. Her magazine TheFriday Times was helped by MBC advertisements. She is of the view that “Minoo Bhandara was an institution, a patron of the arts, good causes, and a success….Isphanyar is a dynamic businessman who has diversified the valuable MB brand. The brand has a lot of goodwill in Pakistan.”

“Isphanyar js more bold than his father, who was more of an intellectual. Infact I would say he is stupidly, totally, blindly bold,” says Maj. (R) Sabih in his office, where a framed picture hangs of his boss and Ameer Haider Khan Hoti, (former) CM of a province where MBC alcoholic products cannot enter legally. An MBC employee points out, “They have the quads from stolen NATO containers, they don’t need our beverages.”

Maj. (R) Sabih continues. “He took over under the pressure that he is M.P. Bhandara’s son. In 4 years the kind of investment, innovation he has made, to grow in capacity, that would not be possible in 20 years. His goal for us is to come up with a new product in 2-3 months, we have produced 20-30 in last four years. None have been discontinued, but are made according to demand. He has a very different way of working from his father.”

“I believe if a mountain stands before you, why not just go from the side instead of trying to remove the whole mountain,” says Isphanyar, sitting in the same office where his father sat for forty-plus years. “That is unless the maulvi makes noise.”

The writer is a journalist based in Islamabad