‘I feel sad when I see a newspaper lying untouched outside a home’

In the more than three decades that distributor Abdulla B.K. has worked with Gulf News, his unflinching resolve to do his duty with dedication has remained unchanged.

Since he started his jon on December 4, 1985, Abdulla has seen subscriptions mushroom, owing in no small part to his own ingenuity and hard work in popularising the newspaper, despite people’s initial reluctance to it.

He even remembers his very first customer, a “Mr Gopichandran”.

What he missed most in the years he devoted all his efforts to making Gulf News grow was the presence of his family: His wife and three children. Having had limited opportunities to meet his two sons and daughter, his favourite part of the job in the early days was seeing the enthusiasm of Gulf News’ younger readers, eagerly awaiting the now discontinued Funday section.

Abdulla is sometimes disheartened by the lack of interest shown by younger generations towards reading newspapers and when seeing a newspaper lying outside a home”.

He finds the youth are often not as interested in news gathering as their parents, many of whom consider reading the newspaper an essential part of their day. For years, I used to deviate over 27km from the normal route on a bicycle to deliver a single newspaper. The expectations of customers give me the energy for such tasks,” he said.

Nonetheless, he is happy doing what he has done every day for over three decades: burning the midnight oil, looking forward to meeting his extended network of customers every day, many of whom he happily considers family.

On his performance, he said he has met every single target for as long as he has worked here. “Because at the end of the day, there are few things as pleasing as the satisfaction of a job well done and the love I get for doing it.”

witnessed the growth of Dubai on a scale few have experienced. “Sometimes, it is hard to believe how much has changed. It seems like something out of a dream,” Koolipulakkal said.

He has suffered accidents in the line of duty, once getting hit by a bus in the wee hours when delivering papers on a bicycle.

Koolipulakkal’s enthusiasm to talk to readers hasn’t waned. He still greets his daily customers with the familiarity of an old friend. News feels “sad untouched