Dubai: Dubai, the tale of imagination, as told by a fellow traveller
Prominent Indian expat Ram Buxani has seen Dubai grow from a small town to a megacity
Dubai: Very few in the history get the opportunity to be in the right place at the right time and not all who are fortunate enough to be there make the most of it. Ram Buxani, one of the leaders of the Indian community in Dubai is surely one of those who witnessed the history and made the most of it.
Being part of what he calls one of the greatest metamorphoses any place has undergone, Buxani has documented the journey of his rise and that of Dubai from their humble pasts to the high roads of success in his autobiography ‘Taking the High Road’.
In its third edition now, the book was featured on the last day of the 9th Emirates Airlines Festival of Literature, with Buxani narrating his journey with Dubai and the reasons why he wrote the book.
“I have often seen people with a lot of wisdom and a lot of great memories pass away without leaving their legacy behind. They either lose their memories or ultimately when they pass away, they don’t leave anything behind to tell the world what they had seen, and I feel it’s a loss to the world. That is why I decided to write before my computer (mind) slowed down,” said Buxani, whose book gives us a peek into the life of Dubai when there were no cars and electricity.
President of ITL Group, one of the first business firms to be established in Dubai, Buxani says Dubai’s astonishing growth is greater than that of the United States.
“I feel that Dubai’s dream is much bigger than America’s because what the United States achieved in 300 years, Dubai did in 30 years, which is a great accomplishment. When I came to Dubai, the world was in the 20th century but Dubai was still in the 19th century … behind most nations, but today Dubai and the UAE are ahead of others in development of the 21st century,” said Buxani, who has seen Dubai growing from a small town where most people knew each other to the megacity it is today.
Now a septuagenarian, Buxani came to Dubai when he was 18 and “fell in love with it”, calling it a home for nearly six decades.
“I came to Dubai to make a living, but I immediately fell in love with the place, the fragrance of the sand sort of enchanted me and there was no going back. No doubt, life was tough, but simple and we all loved it. Dubai was a small town with the whole of Bur Dubai and Deira being not more than half a kilometre. As there were no cars, people walked down the road for work and spoke to each other and like most small towns, most people knew each other,” added Buxani, reminiscing the old days.
Attributing his success and that of Dubai to the visionary leaders of Dubai who are always quick to take initiatives, he added that business thrived in the emirate because of the conducive atmosphere created by the leadership which goes back to several generations.
Relating a story that goes back to more than 100 years when much of the world didn’t know about Dubai, he said: “More than a century ago, people of my community in Thatta, a town near Karachi, Pakistan, used to do trade with the pearl divers of Iranian town of Bandar Linge, but they were in trouble when the authorities there decided to tax and that time, the then Ruler of Dubai, Shaikh Saeed Bin Maktoum Bin Hasher Al Maktoum, invited the business community to Dubai and gave them protection opening up a new avenue of trade and prosperity. This what you call initiative and vision which you can still see in Dubai.”
He added that Dubai doesn’t work on logic and the transformation of Dubai is due to the vision of its leadership.
“You can achieve A to Z through logic but if you have to achieve beyond Z then you have to have great imagination and I feel Dubai runs on imagination. This massive city and its amazing infrastructure is a result of this imagination, which is why we see Dubai hosting more nationalities than the number of member countries the United Nations has,” he said.
– By Shafaat Shahbandari, Staff Reporter
Link to article: http://m.gulfnews.com/news/uae/culture/dubai-the-tale-of-imagination-as-told-by-a-fellow-traveller-1.1992125