Dubai: It took Mohammad Ali Ansari five days to reach Dubai from the southern coast of Iran.
It was 1940 and there were no powered boats so Ansari and his father, along with 25 Iranian traders, sailed across the Gulf relying solely on air and sea currents.
It took them three days to reach the island of Abu Mousa and another two to reach Dubai from there despite the island's proximity to the city.
The boat was becalmed midway between Dubai and Abu Mousa for more than 12 hours, Ansari recalled.
"There was no wind … We waited for 12 hours until we decided to start rowing it," he said. A day and a half later, the then nine-year-old Ansari, his father and the 25 traders unloaded their belongings by the Dubai Creek, including sacks of rice and sugar brought by the traders from India.
Gripping poverty
Ansari has called Dubai home ever since.
Ansari moved to Dubai to escape Iran's gripping poverty. He joined his father and grandfather in their grocery store and bakery at the Abra Souq.
The store, which his grandfather had set up about 100 years ago, was one of the few in Dubai that sold imported goods from Europe, claimed Ansari.
Ansari contributed to the family business by walking around the neighbourhood with fresh bread piled on his head. He shouted "Warm bread!" during the day and "Kerosene and matches!" after lunch.
"Times were different then," he said.
"When I first came here only the Indian currency was used."
One Indian rupee, he explained, was equivalent to 16 annas. Annual rent for a store cost 10 rupees, and a bottle of kerosene cost one anna.
Ansari speaks of old Dubai with nostalgia, comparing the city then as a finjaan [Arabic coffee cup] in size.
Ansari likes his Dubai the way it used to be: small and personal. The city's growing population and size discourage him.
"That was the time of honesty and good health, when everyone was the same," said Ansari.
Dubai Mohammad Ali Ansari runs a popular Iranian restaurant, Special Ostadi, with his sons in Bur Dubai today, which serves as a time capsule that has witnessed Dubai's transformation through the decades.
The restaurant was established in 1978 and its name was changed from 'Special Iranian Kebab'. "That's the only thing I changed in the restaurant. Everything else is the same," said Ansari.
An early mobile phone the size of a small briefcase hangs on one wall, while pictures of Dubai's development over the years hang on another along with those of prominent personalities that have visited the restaurant.
Ansari has had a long term hobby, which is exhibited as the most visible characteristic of his restaurant. Hundreds of banknotes in various currencies are displayed under a glass cover on each table.
Currency collection
Ansari said he started collecting the notes at a young age, and likes to show them off in his restaurant.
"These days, when people from other countries visit my restaurant they sign their notes and give them to me," he said.
Some of Ansari's most prized notes are displayed close to him, on the cash counter at which he sits. They are the notes dating back several decades that were used in Dubai and Iran, the two places Ansari remains attached to.
At a glance
1940: Battle of Britain.
1945: World War II ends.
1950: Outbreak of Korean war.
1953: Mohammad Mossadegh, Iranian prime minister overthrown.
1956: Hungarian revolution and Suez crisis.
1963: JFK assassinated.
1968: Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy assassinated.
1969: Moon landing.
1974: Nixon resigns.
1979: Shah leaves Iran
1980: Iraq invades Iran.
1982: Falklands war.
1990: Iraq invades Kuwait.
1992: Clinton elected.
2000: Bush elected.
2001: Terror attack on America.
2003: Iraq invaded.
Then and now
Mohammad Ali Ansari arrived in Dubai from Iran in 1940. Ansari has called Dubai home ever since. "When I first came here only Indian currency was used," he said.
