DUBAI DRIVER BRINGS HISTORY OF THE UAE ALONG FOR THE RIDE
▶ Pakistani resident Syed Mohammed uses his family’s story to teach his customers about the country’s rich past, writes Anna Zacharias
Syed Mohammed’s grandfather moved to Sharjah from Pakistan in the 1940s as a soldier in the British military. The nights were sticky and hot and in lieu of air conditioning, the soldiers would soak sheets in water and sleep on top of the water tower to catch any hint of a breeze.
But the grandfather, Noor, told his grandson that the soldiers were afraid, in case they fell in their sleep.
Mr Mohammed, 38, likes to regale tourists with his grandfather’s tales of hardship.
Mr Mohammed is a driver for ride-hailing service Careem and an unofficial keeper of his family’s 70-year history in the Gulf.
“According to my grandfather, life was very tough. It was all sand, nothing over there,” Mr Mohammed said.
His grandfather was the first member of the family to arrive and was soon followed by two younger brothers, who enlisted with the British military. Noor’s son, Khalid, also made the move.
It was the late 1960s and the cities of Dubai and Abu Dhabi were growing.
Khalid, who was 15 at the time, left his village in north-eastern Pakistan, about 20 kilometres from Pakistan-administered Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and travelled to Karachi, where he boarded a boat for Fujairah.
Khalid made his way to Dubai, joined his father and worked as a porter at the spice market on the Creek.
At 18, he had the opportunity to join Dubai Police but there was one problem: his entry was undocumented.
It was 1970 and the emirates were only months away from unification. Centuries of casual migration across the seas were at an end. Khalid needed official papers.
He travelled from Ras Al Khaimah to the Musandam Peninsula on his way back to Pakistan, where he applied for a passport.
A few weeks later, Khalid was on a flight to Dubai, about to make his first documented arrival.
He joined Dubai Police in 1971 and worked his way up the ranks, from cleaner to corporal.
Khalid’s wife joined him in the UAE in 1984 with his two sons. One was Mr Mohammed, who was only three at the time.
They lived in Al Nasr Square, which at the time had open spaces and buildings made of wood and corrugated iron.
“It was a beautiful area at that time, beautiful time. There was only one building you know, the main Deira Tower,” Mr Mohammed said.
The family grew. Seven children slept in one bedroom, with their parents in the other. Cousins, aunts and uncles gathered at the house for Friday meals.
Evenings were spent stargazing with boys from the neighbourhood, the children sprawled out on the sand, snacking on crisps such as Pofak and Chips Oman and drinking laban.
“When we were sitting alone in the sand, we were in heaven. We would take a bed sheet and sit there like kings,” Mr Mohammed said.
His formal education began at age 11, when he was sent back to Pakistan with his older brother for three years of boarding school.
The boys were heart-broken. They convinced their mother to let them return to Dubai and enrolled at His Highness Sheikh Rashid Al Maktoum Pakistan School Dubai in Al
Qusais. Officially it was an English-language school, but its halls echoed with chatter in Urdu, Punjabi, Pashto and Balochi.
Holidays to Pakistan held little interest. They were already outsiders.
After decades spent working in various jobs at various companies, desk work took its toll on Mr Mohammed.
A doctor told him to change his lifestyle so he became a driver for tourists, businessmen and Careem customers.
“Some people tell me my profession has taken a U-turn,” Mr Mohammed said.
“But I am happy. It’s the kind of job in which I’m free. Whenever I want off, I can take off. I am my manager. Whenever I want to work, I am free to work.”
He shares an old villa in Jumeirah with nine other drivers. His wife and two children, aged eight and 11, are in Pakistan.
He says he hopes they will stay with their families when they grow up, rather than being living away from their children as he does.
“OK, my father enjoyed a good life – he was with his family. My family is there and I am here. I want to live where they live,” he said.
“They shouldn’t be living like me when they are older. They should be living with their wives and their kids.”
Yet Mr Mohammed says that life outside the UAE is unimaginable. “I don’t care about my life because I owe too many things to this country. I have such feelings for this place.”
When we were sitting alone in the sand, we were in heaven. We would take a bed sheet and sit there like kings