Meet Abdul Kareem

When I completed my B.Tech in Civil Engineering in 2012, most of my peers were choosing Computer Science. I chose Civil — deliberately. I believed building homes was one of the most meaningful things an engineer could do for a family.

I entered the industry and saw a pattern that frustrated me every single time. Homeowners were making decisions based on price and brand name alone — not specifications, not material quality, not what was actually going into their walls and slabs. They had no way of knowing, and no one was telling them.

I spent my early years in construction site work while running labour contracting alongside. By 2014 I was fully operational with Zahra Builders — managing residential projects across Chennai for nearly a decade. Those years showed me the industry from the inside: where homeowners lost money, where quality was quietly compromised.

In September 2022, I closed Zahra Builders and founded Mason & Mortar with one clear purpose — to build a construction company where every homeowner knows exactly where their money goes, and where every decision is driven by engineering, not convenience.