For the record

When the searing heat and biting wind tested the innate resilience of the desert dweller, he turned to music to soothe the soul.

The lilting rhythm of folk music wafted across the terrain as people wound up their gramophones and listened to their favourite tunes. But these gramophones came at a price, and people of this region were ready to pay the sum.

Ali Khamis Al Qamish, a 65-year-old UAE national, has been collecting gramophones all his life. "The first gramophones came to this region just before the 1920s. They were gifts from Britain to the Sheikhs and Rulers."

Word soon spread about these wonder machines and people would stream into the palaces to take a look at them. Their dream was to own one themselves. Al Qamish said Khan Saheb was the first common man to own a gramophone. And, soon there was hope: if Khan Saheb could procure a gramophone, others could too.

"Sayed Abdul Razzaq, who was an employee with the British Government, also owned one and some decided to start a business in gramophones.