Others can tell tales about his business acumen and how he and his brother built their empire or about the many charities that he supported. I want to tell you about the man whose personal qualities many of us came to admire. Allow me to share with you in a personal tribute my stories and reflections of this caring, insightful man:
The food connoisseur: Razzak Tabba hated being invited to restaurants and clubs and almost always preferred for people to come have a meal with him. And he would give a very simple reason: "I get much better food at home than in any restaurant in Karachi".
Food was a passion - not just for his own taste buds but he was just as passionate when feeding others. He would buy the fruit himself or teach someone personally how to pick the fruit.
In London, he could tell you where to go for the best Alfanso mangoes or peaches or cherries or Khaw sway or Lebanese food. But the most amazing thing about this tycoon was that once you had a meal with him, he would always remember what you liked most. Each time you ate at his table afterwards, that dish would be present.
I was particularly privileged. Besides his fondness of me, he appreciated that I shared his passion for food. Often, I would get calls like: "what are you doing for lunch today? We have made your favourite samosas, or Yunus Seth brought some Aapus mangoes from Dubai. " The extent of his thoughtfulness was that in his first visit after I moved to London, he brought home-made samosas from Karachi.
The bankers' favourite: A natural trader, his calculations were on a notepad. A sharp industrialist, he received self-developed 2-page manual MIS from his factories every morning that would rival the MIS at multinational companies. Having just prayed, often he would receive you in his office barefoot or in slippers.
He was not like many famous Pakistani businessmen; he never defaulted on a loan; he never sought re-scheduling. He did not throw the kind of parties that are a staple of Karachi and Lahore's corporate worlds. Yet, one of the Pakistan's major stockbrokers lamented: "all the bankers want to do is lend to Razzak Tabba".
There is no doubt that RT (as many of us in the banking industry fondly called him) was very popular with the bankers. And given the choice of Sindh Club or even Okra and RT's lunch -- 4 out of 5 days a week you would find at lunch anyone from Zakir Mahmud to Kassim Parekh, from Zubair Soomro to Haider or Abbas Habib - but also his relationship managers or corporate bank heads at many of the banks that dealt with him and those that wanted to do so.
But bankers climbed the non-descript, dilapidated staircase in Jodia Bazar not just for the food or for the business opportunity. The conversation at RT's table was always incisive and thoughtful.
Even in my financial institution, Citibank, it was well-known among the senior bankers who visited the country that if one wanted to get a sense of what was going on in Pakistan, one had to include RT in their itinerary.
He had a view and he did not mind sharing it. And he would give his view plainly - there was consternation but no diatribes; there was caution and maturity but no sugar quoting - and that was valuable. He was sought after because he truly had the pulse on the business activities of the country. He could sense trends better than any banker or economist.
But he was after all just a man; and sometimes he would get it wrong. A few times you would visit him and everything in the world would be wrong. In the years that the cement industry was not doing well, some of us began suggesting that there was a direct co-relation between this mood swing and the cement prices. "Razzak Seth: looks like cement prices must have fallen today" became a standard joke between us.
The Memon spokesman: Razzak Tabba also had a vision - certainly for his family and his Group, but also for his community, his city and his country. From a trader he became the country's largest exporter to one of the largest industrialists. He made a bundle but he also invested a lot of money creating significant employment in the country. Just as his empire grew, so did his philanthropic activities with his community and the city being the prime beneficiaries. Besides his well known philanthropy in the health sector, there was also focus on vocational training to create self -employment, particularly among women, and yes, Memon women.
There is no doubt that he was a vocal spokesman for the Memons. Some have, therefore, criticised him as overtly-ethno centric. His response was: "I am involved with the Memon community world-wide.
But in Karachi, the issues of the Memon community are compounded by the problems of our city. I marvel at what the Chinniotis have done for themselves and how they have looked after each other. Why should we not do so also? I am in a position to do something for our community and our city and will do so. But everything is not about others and us. You know, the business associate I admire the most is not a Memon - but Mian Abdullah. Pakistan would be a different country if we had a 100 Mian Abdullahs."
THE REFLECTIVE MAN AND PATRIOT: Bashir Ali Mohammed, Nasser Jaffer, Mian Abdullah and Razzak Tabba signed up for an intangible, esoteric initiative - for which none of them would personally benefit. But these are reflective patriots and it took each one of them less than 10 minutes to decide that they wanted to be a part of such an initiative.
Together, we formed the Fellowship Fund for Pakistan (FFFP), a charitable trust whose mission is "to provide opportunities to Pakistan's highest quality thinkers from all walks of our society for research, discourse and interaction with global opinion and policy makers".
One of the aims of the Fund is to enable our leading thinkers to bridge the gap between international perception of Pakistan and reality "through creative contact between the world of ideas and world of policy". Razzak Tabba did not have an intellectual public persona but those of us who got to know him were always impressed with his reflective nature and strong desire to contribute towards ensuring a successful future for Pakistan.
As a first step, we tied up with the prestigious Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars in Washington, DC to promote non-partisan scholarship "for free, informed and serious dialogue on issues of public interest and concern between Pakistan and the Untied States".
In order to continue to give you a glimpse of the kind of man Razak Tabba was, allow me to share with you two episodes from working with him on the FFFP:
The five trustees are incredibly busy, travel all the time and two don't even live in Karachi. Consequently, some of us wanted that any trustee should be allowed to operate the account. Razzak Seth said no it must to be two trustees. He said: "we five are here today, tomorrow there may be our next-of-kins or others.
Today, it is just about remittances to the Wilson Center, but we must do much more, and we must have that vision that the funds flow will get more complicated". We agreed but put the onus on him and made him in charge of the accounts and chequebook. At the end of the year, FFFP's accountant, Mustafa Khandwalla called me thoroughly confused: "I have all these expense receipts but other than the remittance to the Wilson Center no cheque has been written or money withdrawn from the Fund's account".
Razzak Seth never had any intention of tracking down any Trustee and was quite content at being reimbursed by the trust after its annual audit.
As part of the agreement with the Wilson Center, FFFP sends a scholar for nine months to Washington DC. Razzak Seth's first question was: "who will choose the scholars?" I told him that we should induct a council of eminent individuals from all walks of society to advise us - but I thought that this advisory council should be completely independent from the trustees in acting as a selection committee.
THERE WAS HUMILITY IN THIS MAN: "Absolutely. What do we businessmen know about picking scholars! If we are going to send the highest quality thinkers - we need even higher quality thinkers to pick them". He also had a very basic, practical wisdom. He continued: "most intellectual people world-wide naturally have very strong views and perhaps rightly have egos. We have to find a chairman who is at par with them intellectually and has experience in leading and in developing a consensus".
So, who was Razzak Tabba? Let me appropriately close with the words of the corporate leader, Zafar A. Khan, who is the Chairman of FFFP's Advisory Council: " Razzak Tabba was a fine businessman and even a nicer human being".