Delhi to São Paulo: Son of Sardar
- vishwasdubey
- May 2
- 5 min read
When Manmeet Singh (name changed) first landed in São Paulo, the city didn’t feel real—it felt like noise.
A blur of honking cars, unfamiliar faces, and a language that rolled off people’s tongues like music he couldn’t understand. He was eighteen, standing beside his father at Guarulhos Airport, clutching a small suitcase and a lifetime of comfort he didn’t yet realise he was about to lose.
His father, a seasoned businessman from Delhi, had come to Brazil chasing opportunity—textiles, exports, something promising. Manmeet had come along, reluctantly, dragged out of his familiar world of friends, college corridors, and the comforting chaos of India.
But São Paulo had other plans.
Everything Changed
Both son and father explored various business opportunities through their business partner but the pace of deal closure was very slow. While there were lot of prospects, it was taking time to build trust. Around a month later, Manmeet’s father decided to leave.
“It’s temporary,” his father had said, avoiding eye contact. “I need to go back to India for some urgent matters. I’ll return soon and in the meantime, you continue to develop business with our partners. I'll call you every week.”
Temporary stretched into months. Months stretched into silence. The calls became shorter. Then fewer. Then gone.
Manmeet was alone in the accommodation arranged by his father’s business partner.
A City That Didn’t Speak His Language
The first thing loneliness does is to make silence loud. The second thing it does is make you aware of everything you don’t understand.
Manmeet couldn’t speak Portuguese. Not a word beyond “obrigado.” Even buying bread felt like a negotiation with embarrassment. People spoke fast, laughed, and moved on. He stood there, nodding, pretending. He soon realised that without good mastery over language, he won't be able to setup or expand business.
Days turned into survival routines.
Point at things instead of asking
Smile instead of responding
Walk away instead of trying
At night, the silence grew heavier. He would sit by the window of his tiny rented room, staring at São Paulo’s endless skyline, wondering how a city so full could make someone feel so empty.
He missed everything - His mother’s cooking. His friends’ careless jokes. Even the traffic back home felt like a memory he would trade anything to relive.
Breaking Point
The breakdown came quietly.
One evening, after being mocked by a shopkeeper for his broken Portuguese, Manmeet returned home and collapsed on the floor. Not dramatically. Not loudly.
Just… collapsed.
Tears came, not from that one moment, but from everything he had been holding in.
“I can’t do this,” he whispered to no one.
For the first time, he considered giving up. Going back. Admitting defeat.
But there was a problem.
He had no money to buy a flight ticket to go back.
The First Step Forward
Desperation can either destroy you or rebuild you.
The next morning, Manmeet walked into a small local library.
He didn’t know why. Maybe because it was quiet. Maybe because it felt safe.
There, he picked up a beginner’s Portuguese book.
“Português para Iniciantes.”
That was the first real decision he made on his own.
He started small.
One word a day
Then five
Then full sentences
He practised out loud, stumbling, repeating, failing, trying again.
People still laughed sometimes. But now, he understood why.
And slowly, the laughter stopped.
Work, Failure, Repeat
Language opened doors—but not wide ones.
He realised that apart from meeting prospective textile customers, he would need to do something additional to survive. Manmeet took whatever work he could find:
Working part-time at a restaurant
Helping unload trucks
Assisting at a small fabric store
Each job came with its own set of learnings.
Late payments.Long hours.People who saw him as “the foreign kid.”
He failed often.
Once, he lost a job because he misunderstood instructions.Another time, he got cheated out of his wages.
Each failure chipped away at him—but also hardened something inside him.
He began to observe.
How people negotiated. How businesses worked. Howtrust was built—or broken.
Without realising it, he was learning.
Love in an Unexpected Place
He met Sofia (name changed) on a rainy afternoon.
She started at the same restaurant where he was working part-time. Unlike others, she didn’t laugh at his accent.
She corrected him.
Gently.
“Not obrigadoo,” she smiled, “obrigado.”
She taught him more than language.
She taught him how Brazilians think, how they connect, how they trust.
More importantly, she listened.
To his broken stories. To his quiet struggles. To the parts of him he hadn’t shared with anyone.
For the first time since arriving in Brazil, Manmeet didn’t feel alone.
The Turning Point
One evening, while working at the café, Manmeet overheard two suppliers arguing over delayed textile shipments.
Something clicked.
Textiles.
That night, he couldn’t sleep. He made plans to connect with those Brazilian buyers?
It sounded very difficult but which is exactly why he decided to try
He started next day.
Reached out to those buyers along with his local business partner.
Used broken Portuguese and improved confidence to pitch locally
Faced slight resistance
“Por que confiar em você?”(Why should we trust you?)
But Manmeet had learned something by then: Resistance is just delayed acceptance—if you keep showing up.
The First Deal
A small order. Nothing big.
But to Manmeet, it was everything.
He worked obsessively:
Ensured quality
Communicated constantly
Delivered on time
When the client came back for a second order, something shifted.
Trust.
And once trust begins, growth follows.
Rising Through Resilience
Years passed.
The boy who once couldn’t order coffee now negotiated contracts.
The teenager who cried on the floor now ran meetings.
Manmeet built his business step by step:
Expanded supplier networks
Built relationships in Brazil’s textile market
Hired a small team
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