His family also grew, with a daughter and three sons who also work in the business, the RAFI Group. The business grew, expanding to art materials and supplying hotels with artwork. Today the area is entirely built up, home to an international Chinese school, and with the main runway of a much expanded Dubai International Airport just a few kilometres away. “It took two years to get a telephone line,” Shaukat recalls. An aerial photograph belonging to the family shows it almost alone in the desert scrub. In 1985, Shaukat married Fouziya, a match arranged by his parents with a Kuwaiti family to whom he was distantly related.Īs a Gulf citizen, she was eligible to buy land in Dubai, so a plot was secured on the outskirts of the city at Mirdif. A confident young man – a photo shows him wearing a pair of fashionable flares – he had an idea for a business based on his love of cameras and photography. Pawan Singh / The Nationalįive years later, Shaukat was ready to leave school. The family had driven to Abu Dhabi from Dubai. Shaukat Ali Rama with his first camera, attending celebrations leading to the creation of the UAE on December 2, 1971.
He was now 11, and a family photograph from the trip shows him watching the parade, barefoot, with the camera proudly hanging around his neck. Shaukat had been given his first camera for the trip, something that would become a lifelong passion, to record the celebrations.
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“We waited an hour until a taxi came along, and the driver said “you can follow me”. “It could be the way to Abu Dhabi but it could also be Al Ain. “My dad was worried about which way to go,” Shaukat says. To reach Abu Dhabi was a four to five-hour trip guided by nothing more than tracks in the sand.Īfter receiving their border pass at the Seih Shuaib crossing, Rafi was baffled. This was no 90-minute drive to the capital. It was just in time for the family’s first adventure, a trip to Abu Dhabi to witness the formation of the UAE and celebrations that would also have included the fifth anniversary of the accession of Sheikh Zayed as ruler. In 1970, Rafi obtained his driving licence and bought his first car, a treasured Volkswagen hatchback. His father did not want to abuse his friend’s generosity. As a favour he allowed the children in for free. Shaukat’s father was friends with the manager, a former roommate from his first days in the country. Shaukat was sent to the Pakistani Academy in Karama in Oud Metha, a 40-minute walk through what was then mostly desert.įor entertainment, there was a cinema in Deira showing Bollywood films twice a night. The family settled into their new home and soon added a baby daughter. “He rented it from Sheikh Rashid for 2,000 rial a year (Dubai used the Qatari rial before the Dirham) and it was in what they called the ‘Cola Colony’ because it was in the same area as the Coca-Cola factory.”
Initially, the family, which included his brother Liaquat, lived in a three-bedroom flat in Karama. Memories of '71: 'Even the Sheikh knew Hindi.
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