Whispers of Worth: A Telex Operator’s Tale in Old Dubai
Whispers of Worth:
A Telex Operator’s Tale in Old Dubai
Inthose years — before Dubai had grown into its mirrored skin of towers and steel, before the endless boulevards and malls that swallowed whole afternoons in refrigerated splendour — there was sand. And wind. And silence. A silence that hummed with the promise of beginnings. The air, though still, seemed to carry whispers: of fortunes yet to be made, of lives about to unspool.
In the warm belly of that beginning, I was twenty-two. Young enough to believe in the certainty of arrival, old enough to feel the pinch of shoes that blistered. My suitcase held shirts ironed so stiff they cracked at the folds, a pair of over-polished Wrangler boots, and a letter of appointment from the Chartered Bank. I was a telex operator, though the title felt grander than what the job truly was.
The bank stood near the old souk, its cement façade tired already in a city not yet awake. Not far from the creek where dhows floated like resting dogs — sun-baked, salt-scarred, rocking gently as though dreaming of Zanzibar or Kutch. My room was behind a thick door, filled with the clatter of machines and the rhythm of commerce as it pulsed in bursts of tape. Not glamorous, no. But in the careful, compact grammar of immigrant life, it was a paragraph of worth.
Each morning, as the city yawned and stretched into light, I arrived before the others, in multi mode transport, on foot, shared taxi and abra. The grilled doors of the bank breathed open, releasing a sigh. Inside, the air was chilled and smelled of carbon and paper, metal and sweatless effort. The cream-tiled floor echoed under my footsteps, and the walls seemed to murmur in approval at the early discipline. It smelled of work. Of ritual. The scent clung to your shirt collar, nestled in your fingertips. A perfume for men who moved money, not mountains.
By seven, I sat before the telex machine — 45431 Chartbk DB — its small green light blinking like an obedient pet. It greeted me with the familiarity of a ritual: messages waiting like prayers to be recited. This machine was my world’s altar. The line was private. London. Bahrain. Mumbai then Bombay. Singapore. Invisible wires stretched through sand and sea, bearing missives that shaped destinies. Each one urgent. Each one trusted.
My room was a sanctum. The peons never entered, their blue uniforms hovering outside the threshold. Clerks passed by with respectful glances. Even the managers — their shirts light, their eyes calculating — would pause before entering, knock gently, then step in. There was no announcement. No ceremony. Just the quiet recognition that I held something — small, precise, essential. Not grandeur, never that. But a steady dignity. The kind that stayed silent.
The work began with sorting: telex messages received overnight, curled at the edges like sleeping scrolls. Each had to be classified — Current Accounts, Dealing, Bills, Advances, Management. Each had its urgency, its purpose.
Current Accounts were the soul of the bank — expatriates wiring money to families they hadn’t seen in years. Dealing belonged to sharp-eyed men who breathed numbers, flicked pens like daggers. Bills carried the bulk of trade: sarees from Mumbai, garments from Taiwan, electronics from Tokyo, cotton from Karachi. Advances were riskier, promises wrapped in currency.
Three-ply paper ruled the process — white for acknowledgement, pink for action, yellow for Accountant’s ecord. The test keys, sacred as scripture, were once only in officers’ hands. But I had them. Barclay Butler handed them to me one morning. No speech. Just a nod. In that nod was a promotion not in title or money, an unspoken ceremony, a passport into trust.
I never gave the messages to peons. Not from arrogance, though some assumed so. Their Hinglish, their slowness, their ragged slippers — it unnerved me. The bank was not forgiving of delay. So I carried the messages myself. Desk to desk. I became a silent postman in a building that did not sleep, only paused.
By nine, the dealing room snapped awake. Two desks. One black phone. And the sound of money moving: millions, sometimes. The Central Bank shut at eleven. Miss the deadline, and the penalty was brutal — fifty percent on daily interest. There were mornings when I ran — literally ran — down to the dealers desks, past the accounts department bay, past the peons who sipped sweet tea and the officers who smoked, clutching a message that had to be signed, sealed, dispatched.
Mid-morning, the foreign exchange rates began their jittery dance. The machine clicked and whirred, paper fed through like ribbon at a wedding. Mistakes were fatal. One wrong digit, one misspelling, and a day’s transactions could collapse. But I had trained in Colombo, where precision was prayer. I could type eighty words a minute. I could read punched tape like a braille reader reads lives.
By noon, messages flooded in like a monsoon. Telegraphic transfers. Confirmations. Corrections. Instructions. It was an assembly line of urgency. A clerk drafted the message. Typists — three women, fierce and fast — clattered it out. Officers reviewed. The Accountant approved. Then, like a sacred scroll, it returned to me. I prepared it for dispatch. Tape spooled, trimmed, mounted.
Every message had rhythm. And in that rhythm, I found peace. Like a rosary passed through fingers, each step calmed me. Anchored me.
Even the peons, shuffling in heat and boredom, had a place. Without them, paper would stall. They carried burdens no one valued. But I, in stubborn pride, carried mine myself. Their work mattered. Mine did too. We each did what we could, in the quiet theatre of the bank.
By afternoon, messages to Head Office were prioritised. Then the Gulf. Then the West. I worked through the light. Watched it change. Watched it leave. Sometimes I stayed till five. The city outside growing noisy, impatient. But inside, I remained.
Not once did I resent it.
The bank paid well. Better than most. But that wasn’t why I stayed. In that small room, with its machines and carbon paper, I had found a kind of purpose. A centre. A stillness.
In a city not yet sure of itself, I had found certainty. And that — like trust — was not given freely. It was earned. It was kept. It was mine.
Comments
Post a Comment