I’ve always loved going to the Harry’s bar at the corner of Orchard Road. For me, it provides a great ambience to simply relax and catch up with friends. And if you do not fancy the live music being played, you can always go to the second floor balcony to chill and ‘people watch’. The fact the infamous Orchard Towers is just next door just adds variety to the people walking past.
My point of writing the above paragraph?
The Life! section of The Straits Times (28th April 2008, Monday) had interviewed Mr. Mohan Mulani, CEO and director of Harry’s Holdings. (I cannot reproduce that article here because the Straits Times online version is not free even though I subscribe to the printed edition and even though other major newspapers around the world have free online versions. Quite silly if you ask me.)
Anyway, I digress. It is a fairly interesting article about how Mr. Mohan sort of stumbled into managing Harry’s bar and how he turned it into a company projecting $38 million in sales this year. But that’s nothing too interesting, right? There are after all quite a bit of stories of how entrepreneurs suffered but yet persevered and made it rich.
What I found so interesting was a small column in the report about his education in his younger days. To summarize, Mr. Mohan failed his O level maths; he didn’t even attend the exam it seems. He went on to do his A levels and also ‘fared poorly’. He then went to UCLA to pursue a major in History and Political Science.
Interesting, because a person who failed O level maths and fared poorly for his A levels still managed to do so well in life. (Assuming one’s standard of living is based on money)
Makes me think of the times when my primary and secondary school teachers would warn my class that, ‘if you fail and do not do well in PSLE/O level you will become a road sweeper.’ (Not that being a road sweeper anyone less human)
Now the interesting question here is: Which kind of education prepared Mr. Mohan more adequately to be the person he is right now? His schooling in Singapore or his time in UCLA? Or is this an inaccurate and misleading question in the first place?
