Back to the future: Notes from a lifetime in the UAE
It's like a mother watching her baby grow,
say expat who have lived through UAE's transformation
By Majorie
van Leijen and Bindu Suresh Rai
Published Friday,
December 02, 2011
Emirates 247
Suresh Laxmichand Shaholia
The smile that envelops his face is only matched by the twinkle in his eyes, as
Suresh Laxmichand Shaholia recollects his childhood years that brought his
family aboard a cruise liner to the banks of the Dubai Creek in the early
1960s.
“I was only a child when I first came here in 1961, climbing
aboard an old ship that sailed nearly a week to bring us from Porbandar,
Gujarat to Dubai,”
he recalls. “We had paid Rs1,200 to buy us passage; my father had a mere Rs50
when he set foot in this country in the 1950s.”
Sitting
on the banks of the same creek today, nearly 50 years after his journey,
Shaholia pauses to absorb how life has changed in Dubai, from a sleepy trading port to a
bustling city.
“Historically,
our family has traded in jewellery and when we first extended our base to Dubai, it was to continue
in our profession here,” he stated, adding how their jewellery was sent by
special convoy to the late Sheikh Saeed’s palace every week.
With a
trade licence that bears the number ‘7’, it is safe to say that Shaholia’s
family business was one of the first few to break ground here and launch an
enterprise that would one day play its part in the emirate’s rise.
“Back
in those days, we didn’t have these concrete buildings that surround us today.
What we had were ramshackle shops that were set up on the banks of Dubai Creek,
close to the market now called Souk Al Kabeer,” he said.
“The
market was occupied mainly by Indians and Iranians and a fine distinction was
always maintained between the two groups. The former handled mostly clothes,
jewellery and the like, while the latter dealt mostly in spices and such sort.
We all helped each other when times were tough; it was a very close-knit
community back then.”
Strolling
through the same market five decades later, Shaholia is welcomed by traders
that still reside there almost as a family member, with cheers and smiles that
tie them together through times that few can imagine today.
“Life
back then was as a simple as it gets. We would eagerly wait for the boat to
arrive every week, hopefully bringing with it vegetables to allow us to have a
meal without canned beans,” he revealed.
“The
formation of the UAE was still a decade away, and we didn’t even have basic
necessities such as fresh water and electricity. If we were lucky, donkey
caravans would bring drinking water from the mountains every week and we would
stock up for a week; electricity was still a dream that was fulfilled in the
late 1960s,” he said.
Shaholia
laughed when asked if he had ever thought Dubai
would become a bustling city that it is today.
“Who
could have imagined that the UAE, especially Dubai, would create a concrete jungle that
would one day literally reach for the skies?” he asked. “Dubai’s growth is the perfect example of
success beyond imagination.”
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