It records history. It documents individual excellence by the members of a community in the development of this country, which in turn, proves the land of ultimate opportunity for them. If you are new here and looking for motivation, look no further than long time Indian expatriate Nilangshu Dey’s recently launched first book The Indian Odyssey in Qatar.
It details stories of people who arrived in this once-barren land empty handed, and today, own companies with millions in revenue. And if you are looking to connect with the right kind of people and organisations in the area of your interest, Dey has identified some of the high achievers in Indian community, by far the single largest expatriate base in Qatar.
Even if your stay in Qatar is up, a copy of Dey’s book would be worth keeping. It has memories from times as old as the sedate 50s. The walking and talking living characters in the book while narrating their own stories tell Dey the story of Qatar’s development into the modern state it is today and how it has managed to retain the connect with its rich past.
It tells, for instance, how the individual who introduced and popularised the Karak tea (Indian version of strong tea) in Doha was from India and how his shop was never touched during the upgradation of the old Souq Waqif.   
“It was Bismillah tea stalls that started in 1950s where HH the Father Emir used to come and have tea. It was established by an Indian named Abu Bakar. He popularised Karak and then others followed,” Dey tells Community in an interview.
Dey is a Gold Medalist from Jadavpur University, Calcutta and an internationally acclaimed Automation engineer. He has been a professional activist for almost 36 years.
He has wide professional experience in the field of Automation in Power, Chemical, Petrochemical and Oil & Gas Industries in India, Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Qatar and is involved in leading various global professional bodies.
He wanted to document the contributions of the Indian community members who have been coming to Qatar since the early 40s and 50s. Some have seen their next generations born here. He says a research paper on white-collar jobs in Qatar by one Radhika Kanchana provided the initial basis for his book — and he has duly acknowledged it.
“Apart from that there was no compiled and published information on life in Qatar except for a few references in bits and pieces from the people from the early days,” says Dey.
In the course of his research, he started by identifying people who had arrived in Qatar long ago. For instance, he found a man who had come to Qatar at the age of 15 in 1959 by ship. He got hold of some people who had arrived here in 1962 to work in car companies.
Before them, there was no concept of rent-a-car companies here. These were people who started their careers from scratch.
“And then I started my inquiry and interviews. I began to find people who were born in Qatar in 1959. And this was followed by getting to know about their lives, for instance, where were they born; how and where they have been working, and I got good inputs from them about those days,” says the author.
He also met the longest living civil engineer from India in Qatar who arrived in 1971 at a time when there was no infrastructure as such and now owns a company here. In his book, Dey has divided the people into categories according to their fields.
One such segment pertains to hotels and restaurants. There are around 95 restaurants and juice stalls being run by the Indians here. He claims he did a full study and gave references to the sources of information.
“One person, Younus, now has a multi-cuisine chain of restaurants in different areas in the country. He started out small in the 90s, but now has a chain,” reveals Dey. He has also touched upon the development of media in Qatar where Indian expatriates have played a key role.
Besides hypermarkets, money exchanges and medical sector, some of the best success stories in his book come under the chapter of Indian high achievers in different sectors.
“I have identified 35 people in various sectors, including businessmen and professionals. I have interviewed them and written their stories. There is, for instance, the owner of Safari Mall, Abu Bakar. He came here as a boy and now presides over a ‘billionaire’ company with 32,000 employees. He had started out by trading perfumes. It includes these kinds of success stories,” alludes Dey.
“It gives you the stories of people that you might know but you would not know their stories. I have also included doctors, engineers, chartered accountants, lawyers, traders such as MP Traders, one of the oldest and biggest in Qatar,” points out the author.
As he has only been a technical writer, Dey says he got help from Times magazine to learn about writing style. “I am not a literature writer. I did not know how to feature a person. So I read Times magazine. It offers very nice feature outlines. I studied it for a few months. I tried to copy their template and I have given the reference in the acknowledgment as well,” he adds.
In his book, he has also included a chapter on community activists who have done a significant job in social and benevolent activities like one Abdul Latif, who started an Indian association here and now they are holding medical camps for around 5,000 people.
In total, he interviewed about 150 people for the book. To conduct some of them, he obtained help from female journalists working in Qatar. As for editing, he got the services of an editing group in India.
“My target was that my book should be interesting and people should read it, not put it away. I would ask my wife to read the excerpts and see if they looked interesting to her. If not, I would change them,” says Dey.
The book took him more than two years to complete. The 200-page publication is reader-friendly and available across Qatar at a nominal price, but in a good hardback edition.
In the first quarter of next year, Dey plans to launch the second edition of the book, which will include more details.
Dey is the Founder and President of International Society of Automation (ISA), Qatar, the highest professional body for control engineering professionals worldwide, for the last fifteen years and is also the Vice President of ISA — Europe, Russia, Middle East and Africa.
He is well known as a social and professional activist and has received multiple awards for his leading role in such organisations.