About Dubai: Being up the creek

Islam is employed by the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) as the captain of his ferry for the last eight years, back when he was afraid of water. Now? He can swim. And he’s mastered all the secrets of the water. He knows the weeks when the water is restful the weeks when the current is stronger. He knows on which day it will take him three minutes to get his ferry — his livelihood, Abra No 121 — from Bur Dubai to Deira, Deira to Bur Dubai and back again, and on which days the same trip, because the water current is stronger, will take him five minutes.

At the end of each trip on the Abra each ‘naas’ (passenger) must pay Islam as they hop off. The indicator is Islam brings down the lid of his date-wood box, a sign all passengers understand, he is paid his fee: one dirham for the ride, with a maximum of 25 people on board at once.

Out there in the sun, Islam does at least half a dozen trips a day. Given his job, he spends a lot of time alone, all year round, on board with his thoughts. On the afternoon Khaleej Times met him, he’d done seven trips and the day was not over.

His routine is to wake up at 3am to get from the suburbs to the wharf by 5am, his reporting time. The water is agreeable then. But there aren’t passengers. You’re not allowed to nod off. If Islam succumbs to heavy eyelids at that hour, he has to shell out a fine of Dh500. On Thursday afternoon, his first ride was at 7am.

There’s not much time left this season when a walk down the quayside is still pleasant. Another fortnight, maybe, is the consensus of cargo loaders, the majority of whom aren’t conversant in tongues you speak. Some look blank, some smile back and gesture: no Hindi, no English — “Arabic? Arabic?”. Cartons, boxes, crates — different sized containers of goods are being uploaded, downloaded. Rice, vegetable oil, plastic casings of quilts.

Walking down that side of Baniyas Street, overlooking the water, one can understand what the boatmen mean when they say salt changes the quality of the air. The occupational hazard is how the salty air erodes your skin.

When you walk down the quayside at the creek, as any old-timer can tell, you see a distinct shift in even the socio landscape. First you see the cargo loading area, wooden dhows, burlap sacks and overflowing garbage skips to Parisian tourists trying to get a feel of the ‘real’ Dubai. But if you walk straight, the Abras and garbage skips and men in pathan suits and salt-affected faces give way to thinner crowds, large white yachts with polished surfaces with names such as Al Majilis. There are restaurants you cross stretching along the Creek bank north of Maktoum bridge. The place is teeming with a colony of fish-starved cats. Careful couples saunter about, soaking in the early evening. The odd egret swoops down, but the majority of flight-takers are Senegal doves. Coconut-water vendors and tea stalls do brisk business. The activity, say the traders, we all quiet in the searing months ahead.

It doesn’t help that Islam refuses to accept money for the abra ride he has generously provided. He does let the one unsettling detail slip most causally, and beauty of the creek walk notwithstanding, this detail is what commits itself to memory. Islam says most people come here to commit suicide — in his eight years on board, he has fished out two bodies, and on a January day two years, jumped in after a young Sudanese girl who had jumped into the sea in front of his eyes. When he dived in after her and brought her up, she was still crying and thanked him for rescuing her. What was wrong with her? He doesn’t know all that. He couldn’t stay to chat. His passengers had lined up. He had a round trip to make. Bur Dubai to Deira, Deira to Bur Dubai.

nivriti@khaleejtimes.com