by Fahd Khan
SRINAGAR: Mushtaq Ahmad Rather, 37, from north Kashmir’s Kupwara district has come a long way in his life from being employed as a dishwasher in England to support his living while pursuing a master’s degree and now flowing to California in the United States of America for Glendale University’s Leadership Programme scholarship.
He is currently working as a Business Manager in Riyadh where he reached after spiralling through a maze of hard work.
He did his high schooling at a Government High School in Tarathpora where from he went on to Government Higher Secondary School in Jawahar Nagar.
He did his Honour’s degree from Pune in Maharashtra where he says that Peoples Conference President and politician Sajad Lone guided him.
After graduating from Pune, Mushtaq moved to Mumbai to find employment to raise money to travel to England to enrol in the University of Chester’s Master of Business Administration programme.
However, the journey in England was not as easy as one may think, Mushtaq had to do some odd jobs to support his stay.
“Soon I joined Chester University where we were given a timetable for the whole year. We only had to attend the university for three days, and in the remaining days we used to do part-time jobs to manage our living expenses as living in England is very expensive.”
“I did many jobs starting from dishwashing which was very hard and I used to cry sometimes. Later on, I took up a job of a waiter, a marketing executive and a salesman. All the jobs helped me to understand more about business management,” Mushtaq said.
After completing his Master’s degree in England, he moved to Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. He is currently working as an operational head of Daralheiam Investment Company owned by former Hollywood rapper of 2pac Rap group turned businessman Mutah Beale.
But Mushtaq’s’ journey of doing something more in life didn’t stop at Riyadh, he continued applying for new programmes in various universities across the globe.
“I always used to contact people from many universities on the internet and I had also applied online to many universities. I applied to the Glendale University of California and luckily got selected after many rounds of interviews where I portrayed my managerial experience. I got selected from among 485 students who had participated from across the globe,” Mushtaq said.
Staying in Kashmir and opening a good business here was what Mushtaq had always had in mind but life had other plans in store. While Mushtaq was in England, he with his brother’s help tried his hands at many business ventures which couldn’t flourish for varied reasons.
“I started a wholesale business of garments with the help of my brother but we suffered a massive loss. I tried to develop a restaurant business in Kashmir where employees used to handle it but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it had to be shut down. A businessman in Kashmir has to face several problems”.
Despite all his business ventures failing, Mushtaq didn’t lose hope and is planning to export Kashmiri food products to Saudi Arabia.
Mushtaq is hopeful that he will get support from the government of India in establishing his export business which will provide jobs to the unemployed people in the Valley.
