They say the apple does not fall far from the tree. And meeting the sons of Singapore’s pioneer carpet merchant, Mr Abid H. Mir, it is clear that this is certainly true. The younger Mirs – Imran and Noman – are just as passionate about carpets and philanthropy as their father. Listening to stories of their childhood, one gets a good sense of the strong family values that run deep in the Mir household; the product of its patriarch no doubt.

“I want to be remembered for all the good deeds I have done, by leaving a legacy of humanity for others to be inspired by,” Mir has been known to say in interviews with magazines like India Se last year.

Indeed, the 55-year old father of three (two sons and one daughter) is as known for his altruistic deeds as he is for his stellar success in business. The Pakistan-born businessman’s story is a fascinating rags-to-riches tale that began with Mir’s wealthy carpet merchant father abandoning his pregnant mother.

Both mother and infant son were left in poverty. She worked as a nurse to put him through one of the best schools in Lahore and Mir today believes that all the good that he has learnt in life has been from his Christian teachers at Cathedral Missionary School in Lahore. Growing up poor, Mir wore castaways and worked as a labourer during summer vacations to help sustain the family. And despite his adverse living conditions, Mir’s drive and determination propelled him to acquire a degree in the arts in 1975.

At just 14 years old, Mir started his own carpet venture after only one and a half years picking up the tricks of the trade working as a labourer in a carpet shop. After all, the carpet business was in his blood, with four generations of Mir’s family in the trade. Mir borrowed some money from his uncle to start the business and returned the capital within just seven months. Working with the profit he had made, he would take consignments of carpets from manufacturers and sell them to exporters. There was no turning back after this first taste of success.

In 1978, Mir established a warehouse on Bond Street in London that supplied carpets to all of Southeast Asia. Then in 1981, he moved to Singapore and subsequently registered Kashmir Carpet House, the parent company of Lotto Carpets Gallery that deals in traditional hand made oriental carpets and contemporary master weaves, as well as Antique Treasures, another company which deals in 16th to 19th century antiques. Mir says he chose the name Lotto after his favourite type of carpet; a hand knotted rug of 16th century that is characterised by a stylised lacy arabesque pattern.

Giving Back to Society 

“Business cycles will always go up and down but what is important – what defines you as a human being – is what you do for the society that you take from,” says Imran Abid Mir, the elder of Mir’s two sons who are now running the business while their semi-retired father focuses more on his philanthropic work.

At just 24 years old, Imran appears years beyond his tender age. He speaks effusively about the carpets he has literally grown up with, readily sharing his treasure trove of specialised knowledge as old as the antique carpets sold at Lotto. His passion is palpable. And when he speaks of his father, whom he concedes is a “hard man”, there is only love and respect. He adds: “My dad has always been very passionate about giving back and now we are incorporating it into the business in a more formal way.”

Mir senior’s philanthropic efforts began about 12 years ago but it was always done in his own personal capacity. It was only in 2010 that charity events were coordinated as companywide initiatives. Lotto’s first charity auction raised S$50,000 for Down Syndrome Association (Singapore) while its second raised the same amount for the United Nations Development Fund For Women (UNIFEM).

Other beneficiaries of Lotto’s fundraising activities include Cambodian orphans in Sunrise Children’s Villages (S$25,775 donated), Singapore American Community Action Council’s (SACAC) Sports and Counselling Programmes (S$32,000 raised), and the flood victims of Pakistan in collaboration with SACAC. Held in November 2010, ‘Beyond Boundaries’ was Lotto’s most recent charity auction in association with the Pakistan High Commission, which raised S$70,000 for the Pakistan flood victims. But even before this, Mir had joined the Singapore contingent to provide aid for his native country five weeks after the devastating floods swept Pakistan.

He had collected food, clothing, blankets and medicines from customers and friends of Lotto, personally packed everything into four containers and headed to Pakistan with them to provide relief assistance to more than 7,500 families there. The family has since packed and shipped another five containers of useful items to help the flood victims in Pakistan.

Besides charity events, Mir’s own humanitarian work extends to setting up free clinics in Pakistan that provide free treatment and medicines for the sick and dying, as well as volunteering his time for religious organisations. He also runs the Fareed Bhandar Trust in Lahore, Pakistan that educates children, assists in the marriage of girls, and gives monetary support to disabled children.

“He’s always been a humanitarian; he’s always wanted to help people, it’s his passion. The most fulfilling feeling for him in the world is to help someone,” shares Mir’s daughter Mehreen, who is studying at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, and being groomed to helm the Trust in Lahore.

She adds: “He always says ‘I don’t have three children; I have millions of children.’ For him, his box doesn’t just contain his family; his box contains the world.”

As a parent, Mir has certainly taught by example, inspiring his children to be selfless even from a young age. For instance, when Imran scored great results for his PSLE, his reward was to be a Gary Fisher mountain bike that he had worked so hard for. The entire family went shopping together and just before making payment, his father presented him two options – in a matter-of-fact manner, without any pressure – to get the bike he had been dreaming of, or get two bikes for the same amount of money so that his brother could have one too. Of course, Imran chose two instead of just the one.

“He’s always taught us that before you think of yourself, try and think and imagine what it would feel like from the other person’s point of view,” explains Imran.     Family First As one would expect in a family business, Imran and younger brother Noman literally grew up in the carpet gallery, which has called Dempsey home for the last 17 years.   But surprisingly, there was never any pressure for the pair to fill their father’s big shoes when they grew up. In fact, Mir was deliberate in discouraging his sons from becoming carpet merchants like himself, explaining that it was a stressful business and he did not want that sort of life for them.    Instead, Mir chose to acquaint his children with the carpet trade by having daily question and answer sessions in which they had to ask him at least one question pertaining to the carpets around the house. The boys never got straight answers to the

questions. Not one to do things the conventional way, Mir would instead tell them stories, and “look at the carpet” was a constant refrain.

This proved to be an unusual yet rather effective method of teaching as it honed the duo’s inquisitive minds and taught them how to go about learning about carpets – without needing any push from their father. It was only when they came of age and decided to pursue the family business that Imran and Noman began connecting the dots and realised that they already knew much more about carpets than they thought – because it had been “subliminally placed” in their minds all those years!

Working Their Way Up 

Imran was about six years old when his father began inculcating good oldfashioned values of hard work. There was no such thing as having it easy because they were the boss’ sons. On the contrary, the pair literally started from the bottom – sweeping the floors outside the shop then graduating to washing the dishes and clearing the lunch table after the staff had their meals. They were not even allowed to touch the carpets at the time. It was only when Imran was about 12 years old that he would be allowed to stand next to his father – and learn – while Mir talked with customers. At 16, he was deemed “ready” to speak – but not sell – to customers.

Then when Imran was studying for his Marketing degree from RMIT through the Singapore Institute of Management (SIM), he would go tothe shop to study into the wee hours of the morning. On one fateful night, he took a 10-minute study break, walked around the shop and got “lost” in an antique carpet that caught his eye. Before he knew it, his 15-second glance had turned into 45 minutes as Imran was completely entranced by the intricate patterns, colours and symbols. After that, he was hooked and has been working in the business full-time for almost five years now.

As for 21-year-old Noman, he used to tag along and help his brother with the menial tasks around the shop as a kid – but never with the intention that he would one day join the family business. Noman was studying to be an aeronautical engineer at Singapore Polytechnic when his brother came home from the shop one day talking about how he is the sixth generation in the family business.

There and then, Noman realised that if he continued along the path he was on, he would never be able to boast such strong roots in the field of aeronautical engineering. To the surprise of his entire family, Noman did a complete U-turn and switched his course of study to an honours degree in Business Administration so that he could contribute to the family business and be true to its roots.

As the next generation of carpet merchants, Imran and Noman hope to build on the legacy their father has created by continuing to focus on educating the customer, while injecting some modernity through the use of technology, for instance. “Our mission is to reintroduce the carpet as an artistic work of art rather than just an aesthetic floor covering. People don’t really understand just how many dimensions there are to a carpet.

Whoever comes to our store is told ‘you are not here to buy a carpet; you are here to get educated about carpets’,” says Imran. “Once you get educated, I don’t care if you buy from me or someone else because then nobody can make a fool out of you,” he says, revealing Lotto’s marketing philosophy that prides itself on not having to slash prices and other sales gimmicks. Instead, the focus is clearly on strengthening customer relationships by generating goodwill through an educational approach.

For this business with heart, it is a strategy that has worked for decades now, and probably will for decades more.