In his day job at Dubai Silicon Oasis, Dr Eesa Mohammad Abdulrazzak Bastaki tries to lure talent to this upcoming high-tech city, Dubai's own Silicon Valley. However, he tells Shalaka Paradkar that his burning passion is the heritage and architecture of Bastakia, the playground of his youth.
The Bastakia quarter, located on the south bank of Dubai Creek, is one of the last few fragments of Dubai's architectural heritage. It's an urbanscape of earth-plastered squat buildings, shaded courtyards, silent spaces and windtowers that pierce the sky.
The area got its name from the Bastaki people, emigrants from Bastak, a town in southern Iran who fled their hometown to settle in Dubai.
Bastakia was an ideal site for the merchant community, being close to the creek, where the dhows unloaded, and the market, where business was conducted.
The style of architecture was transplanted directly from Iran.
Bastakia's twisting alleyways provided respite from the harsh sunlight and desert winds, while the dovecote-like windtowers (or barajeels) would funnel the cool sea breeze into the interior of the house. (For anyone who has ever been lost in the quarter, it's good to remember that all the sikkas or alleys run north-south and end at the water's edge.)
There is no better ambassador for Bastakia's beauty and uniqueness than Dr Eesa Mohammad Abdulrazzak Bastaki. Dr Eesa is a descendant of one of the original families who gave the precinct its name.
Like his father's generation, he was brought up in Bastakia and his family home was one of the 100-odd houses that comprised the neighbourhood.
Architect Peter Jackson accompanied Dr Eesa on an emotional trip to Bastak several years ago.
"We found very beautiful sandstone courtyard houses of the same style, rather grander because they were built in stone rather than the coralstone and gypsum used in Dubai," Jackson says.
The architect was researching a book on windtower houses in Dubai and in Dr Eesa he found a willing and enthusiastic repository of information about one of the emirate's oldest residential districts.
Dr Eesa's family home in the Bastakia has now been gentrified into a restaurant, Bastakiah Nights. In a recent community lecture organised by the Architectural Heritage Society, he shared vignettes of Dubai's past with the audience, bringing alive a time when life was simple yet rich.
His day job, however, is rooted uncompromisingly in the 21st century. Dr Eesa is director of education and technology at Dubai Silicon Oasis (DSO), which is currently under construction and expected to attract the world's top technology talent to the region - much like another Silicon Valley.
The city-within-a-city will span over 7.2 million square metres and include commercial, residential, retail and educational facilities.
Among the many positions he holds are chairman, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), UAE Section and chairman, Emirates Science Club.
He is an assistant professor in Electrical Engineering (Communications), the director of the Computer Centre at UAE University (UAEU) and the CEO of Barajeel Engineering Consultants.
Dr Eesa has a distinguished career in the academic arena. He was the head of the energy section at the Technology and Energy Research Centre (TERC) in 1990 and 1991 and head of the technology section the following year.
Prior to joining DSO in 2003, he was the director of the Information Technology Centre and general coordinator for graduation projects at UAEU as well as the IT project manager for Al Ain Municipality.
He has earned numerous honours and awards including the Shaikh Rashid Award for Scientific Excellence.
While much of his work is focused on technology, Dr Eesa's passion is heritage conservation, an interest that was particularly sparked when Dubai Municipality began investigating the possibility of restoring and rebuilding buildings in Bastakia.
While his home was rebuilt, others were restored. However, the memories of old Bastakia, his childhood playground, are still fresh in his mind.
I
I studied technology but heritage is something dear to me. My three passions are technology, the preservation of the Arabic language and heritage conservation.
I see the main objective of the technology and education department at DSO as creating and nurturing talent in electronics, nanotechnology, telecommunications and all kinds of technology. The objectives are talent creation, talent development, technology creation and technology transfer.
I grew up in Bastakia in a simple time. I wouldn't say that life was primitive, but it was rather nice. There were no real worries, but yes, we were eager to grow up.
I grew up in the same house as all my cousins. But when we moved to an apartment block, we were segregated into different apartments. We still got to play together - girls and boys, enjoying a game of football.
ME
Me and my family:
My grandfather, Abdulrazzak Abdulrahim Bastaki (who died in 1955), built our family house some time between 1895 and 1898; the exact date is unknown.
In the early 1920s he went to Kuwait and made a donation towards the building of the Kuwait Wall. His name is supposed to be there on the wall. In 1930 he added the pearl business to his main business of trading.
My father, Mohammad Abdulrazzak Bastaki, was born in the house in 1916. My father was called the Jawhari Sagheer, an honorary title which means a young pearl expert. He earned it when he was all of 12 years old.
My father was the first person to bring a football to the UAE, in 1928. Everyone just kicked the ball around without knowing the rules of soccer.
And when the ball became deflated, they had to wait a full six months for my father to bring back a bladder from Mumbai. My father and his friends only started playing real football after somebody from Bahrain explained to them how the game was played.
And he was the first person to own a bicycle in Dubai. When he brought it from Mumbai in 1930, it was the only one of its kind in the city.
Me and my childhood:
I was born on Christmas Day 1955 in a car travelling between Dubai and Sharjah. Hence I was named Eesa, the Arabic name for Jesus.
When I was a little over 3 years old, I went with my mother to Kuwait. At 6, I returned to Dubai. I was sent to Mumbai at nearly 7, where I studied for the next four years, from grade one to five. I returned to Dubai in 1966.
From that year on, until 1972, I studied at Al Shaab primary and intermediate school in Dubai. From 1972 to 1976, I studied in Jamal Abdulnaser Secondary School in Deira. We were the first batch of students to graduate from this school.
In 1976 I travelled to the US for my higher education. As it happened, we were the biggest batch to ever fly to the US - there were 35 of us on the flight, or nearly 90 per cent of the graduating batch.
As a child, I walked to school from home in Bastakia - school was about 6 km or 7 km away. We didn't have to watch out for cars either. I walked with friends and later rode my bike to school.
On the way we would pass through the narrow alleys of Bastakia. Interesting things would happen on our way to school!
As children, we spent a lot of time during the summer holidays playing games like soccer as well as traditional Emirati games like mistaa (a version of cricket).
The area in front of our house was the playground and looking out of the window of my room on the upper floor, I would see my mates playing mistaa below. There were two versions of mistaa - the Shindagha version and the Bastakia one.
We went swimming in the creek and played horeed (hide and seek). Another popular game was gilili matoau - somewhat like the Indian game of gilli danda, in which players held a long stick with which they struck a short stick.
We played with marbles, spun tops and had another local game called anbar, played with seven stones.
Me and the traditions of Bastakia:
At the Al Majlis held in our house, neighbours, friends and prominent people would gather daily after the Ishaa prayer (the last prayer of the day). These Majlis were all-male gatherings and we learned much by listening to our elders speak.
There would also be daytime meetings on Fridays and Eid celebrations. The Al Majlis discussions revolved around business and trade, society and culture, literature, politics and science.
We knew all our neighbours; visiting each other was a common practice. The strong bonds and love kept the neighbourhood united.
The Bastakia community celebrated Ramadan, the two Eids and Haggellailah (which is similar to Halloween).
We went trick or treating from one end of Bastakia, which was the Bukhash's house, to our house (Today, Rashad Bukhash is director of the General Projects Department at Dubai Municipality and the man who spearheaded the movement to conserve Dubai's architectural heritage.)
For festivals like Eid, the women would spend two days cooking delicacies in the kitchen. For us children, it was all about wearing new clothes and collecting Eid gifts from the elders. Some Fridays, we went to zareebas (farms) out of Dubai for picnics.
Me and life after Bastakia:
In 1975, the house began to fall apart and we had to move out of Bastakia. There were four families staying there - my father's and my uncles' families - and we moved to four apartments in a building on Bank Street until we could build a villa for ourselves.
Our house had been built about 90 years earlier. By 1975, when it began to crumble, maintenance had become quite difficult.
In 1976 I left for the US to study. When I returned in 1985, I took a lot of photographs of the house. I did not know then the house would be demolished less than a year later.
Our house had a gate, which would be really precious now but we just let it go. There were so many parts of the house that had not been valued, but would fetch a fortune today.
Going to the US was not a major culture shock for me, because we were accustomed to travelling to Mumbai, which was a very developed city.
As a student, I learned to be completely independent. I received a Masters in electrical engineering from the University of California, San Diego in 1982 and a PhD in Frame Synchronisation in Communication Systems from the University of California, Irvine.
After returning in 1989, I started teaching at the UAE University in Al Ain. I was a faculty member in the Electrical Engineering Department at UAEU from 1989 until 2003. I taught courses in digital communications, military communications, information theory and coding.
I have taught other courses as well, but mainly my subjects have been digital systems, communication theory and digital systems in mobiles and any new technologies.
As a consultant, I have been involved with several projects and one of my clients has been Etisalat. I also established the IT Centre at Al Ain Municipality.
MYSELF
What was the best part of growing up in this community?
For me the best part of growing up in the Bastakia area were the bonds within the community. Our relationship with our neighbours was exceptionally strong.
We knew everybody who lived in the 100 or more houses which made up the Bastakia quarter - that was the beauty of it all. It was a simple life, bereft of any ill will. There was an abundance of love and friendship. As kids we never thought about what the future held, because we were happy at the time.
What was the turning point that made people realise these buildings should be conserved?
It was actually Prince Charles who spurred the movement to restore Bastakia. He visited the area in 1989 and said that it needed to be conserved for future generations.
This was about the same time that Dubai Municipality decided that Dubai's heritage houses need to be preserved. I came into heritage conservation when my family home was being rebuilt. The whole restoration effort was built around the photographs I had taken of the house.
I sat with the Dubai Municipality team, describing every part of the house so the restoration could be authentic. While other houses were renovated, our house had to be demolished and rebuilt. Today our house is the Bastakiah Nights restaurant.
