Dubai: In a country that has undergone an impressive metamorphosis from a desert into a lush urban oasis, Ali Murad Broohi, a Pakistani gardener who first arrived in the country during the early 1960s, is one of those who coaxed green grass to grow from sand.
In 1962, crossing the Arabian Sea aboard a ship with at least 400 others, Broohi was bound for Dubai. Like many others, he did not have any identification documents and had merely heard of the bountiful work opportunities in Dubai.
“We were issued identification papers on arrival,” he recalls. “There was barely anything here when I first came. After two weeks of working as a labourer, I found work at the port and was supervising about 300 people. I worked there for 20 years. We would load and unload cargo ships. If I remember correctly, we were paid six dirhams a day.”
One of his regrets, says Broohi, is not having claimed UAE citizenship when Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan opened up applications to newcomers.
“A foot of land then cost about five Indian rupees,” he said, “I wish I had bought the land and applied for citizenship. In fact, one of the people who worked under me at the port claimed citizenship and now is a high-ranking citizen. If I’m not mistaken, he owns a few transportation companies,” says Broohi.
After Port Rashid was constructed, Broohi was asked to shift to the new port. However, he declined and chose to pursue gardening instead.
“I was hired by a number of Dubai-based companies where I took care of the landscaping. This was during the ’80s. A few years after I started work as a gardener, I brought my wife to stay with me here.”
He lived in a home, he says, which he built himself in what is now the Safa Park area. “It was just a great stretch of sand then,” he reminisces. “I found a plot of land that wasn’t being used and built a home using plywood. My three sons and daughter were born in that house. We stayed in it for almost two decades.
“However, the municipality asked us to vacate the premises as that land was to be developed. They suggested we move into an apartment building but I didn’t have enough money to pay rent and so I had to leave the country,” says Broohi. “It was the time of the Iraq-Kuwait war in 1990.”
His departure at the time, however, was not to be the final exit from the UAE as it turned out. “I returned in 1999,” he says. “And I was stunned by what I saw. The city, as I remembered it, was no more. It was like I was arriving in a city I had never been to before,” he says.
His family is still in Larkana, Pakistan. “I am proud to say I have 19 grandchildren now. I keep their pictures with me at all times.”
Broohi, who is not sure of his exact age, is now working as a gardener for a Dubai-based company. He is assigned to a school in Academic City, where he maintains the landscaping.
