Pratap Bhogilal Journey Through Life

Author(s): Rauf Ahmed
Publisher: Bhupendra Singh Anand

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PRATAP BHOGILAL - JOURNEY THROUGH LIFE
who happened to be Ben Lassin's agent as well in France for Egyptian and Sudanese cotton. It helped us strike a deal to import Egyptian and Sudanese cotton to India. Our links with Lassin in Alexandria and later on in Paris and Geneva continued for a long time, and Bombay Cotton had a flourishing business with his firm.
In 1948 while in Europe, Bhagwati asked me to buy her a crocodile -leather purse. I asked our agent Maurice Devildere to take me to a shop to buy a crocodile-leather purse. He took me to the famous but the most expensive shop, Hermes. I remember, I bought an exquisite purse which cost £48. It was a gift Bhagwati cherished and used for a long time.
In Japan, 1948
In the winter of 1948 I visited Japan by air via Shanghai on business, on behalf of Bombay Cotton as well as Batliboi. Japan was under American occupation then. Again, being a vegetarian made it extremely difficult for me to get a proper meal. The Americans had canned food, and I had to get extra ration for milk, sugar and cheese. I stayed in Japan for about three months. They were severely cold winter months. Hotel accommodation was rare and there was no central heating. Sometimes I would stay in Japanese inns and have 'sigrees' in my blanket to keep myself warm. The extreme cold affected my health. I was down for a week with fever, but fortunately survived.
Since Batliboi had business connections in Japan at that time for some machinery, we had an agent called Miura. He had suggested that representatives of Batliboi should visit Japan and meet them to discuss further expansion of business. When I was leaving for Japan, Miura requested me to carry some clothes for his daughters. He looked after me very well in Japan. He would regularly move about with me because of the language problem I faced. Besides being an agent, he would also act as my interpreter. One weekend, he asked me over to his home in Kobe. We went there by train from Osaka. On the way from the station to his home, I could see some vegetables in the market. I asked Miura to buy some and took them along to his house. Since I had carried Indian
Nonsense is good only because common sense is so limited - George Santayana