The Sacred Machine
The Sacred Machine
Long before emails, cloud drives, and digital forms, the heart of our Dubai bank pulsed in a corner cubicle – warm, mechanical, and perpetually temperamental. It was beige, boxy, and answered to the name Sharp – a photocopier so revered it might as well have had its own incense burner and prayer rug.
It arrived on a Thursday, wheeled in like a dignitary on a trolley, escorted by two technicians in blue uniforms who moved with the precision of men who’d trained for this their entire lives. They installed it beside the Accounts Department – where else do you keep a treasure? – muttered what sounded like a blessing, and disappeared into the fluorescent haze.
From that day, the Sharp was sacred. Literally. Only two men in the bank were allowed near it: except the managers of course: Hussain, the senior peon who carried himself like a Mughal courtier, and Hamza, his soft-spoken sidekick who whispered like a librarian guarding rare manuscripts. Together, they were the brotherhood of toner and trust.
Hussain was the high priest of photocopying. He handled passbooks, fixed deposit slips, and the occasional smudged work permit with the reverence of a man polishing heirlooms. Colour copies? This was 1979 – colour was for Bollywood posters and dreams. The Sharp churned out five pages a minute in black and white on a good day, its light bar gliding across the glass with the gravitas of a celestial event, leaving us all staring like we’d glimpsed a desert mirage.
Mounted above with the gravity of a royal decree, a sign declared: “PLEASE HANDLE CAREFULLY” in English. Yet, daily, someone would slam the lid, mutter “Sorry” or “Oops,” and vanish before the toner dust settled.
Hussain and Hamza rose in the bank’s social ranks, gatekeepers to the sacred lever. Staff queued with documents like offerings, each copy emerging slightly crooked, faintly ghosted, and always warm – good enough for government work and internal files.
Then there was me.
With my modest salary, I’d uncovered a gem: I could obtain a liquor license – a prized pass for personal use, needing a salary certificate, employer approval and a copy of the passport. I rarely drank, but holding one felt like boasting a cousin in England or a colour TV. Enter Abdullah Sayyah, the staff fixer. Whether it was a driving license, visa, or obscure paperwork, Abdullah was the go-to. He offered to sort my license, promising I could buy up to 250 Dirhams’ worth of liquor monthly from Gray Mackenzie, where I could mingle with Dubai’s elite. But first, I needed photocopy of my passport.
Protocol? Not my forte.
So, I marched to the Sharp – sans incense or permission – and placed my blue passport on the sacred glass, closed the creaky lid, and pressed the start button, hearing the hum of destiny. I watched, awestruck, as a warm slightly titled faintly ghostly copy emerged. I knew I was crossing a line, but pride got the better of me. It was glorious.
But glory invites trouble.
Arif, overseer of nostro and vostro accounts (bank accounts held for foreign banks, for the uninitiated in banking terms of the seventies and eighties), spotted me. Tall, broad, with a set of eyes sharp enough to slice paper, Arif was the Accounts gatekeeper. He thrived on order, often murmuring in Urdu-Hindi with Fakhruddin, the department head, forming the high priests of paperwork.
Arif, irked by my habit of dodging hierarchies and lounging in my private room, took offence. He stormed to Fakhruddin, pointing at me with the drama of a man reporting a stolen gold bar. Back then, the bank also dealt in bullion.
But I was ready.
I strode to their desk, stood between them, and delivered my line with righteous fury.
“I’ll pay for the photocopy,” I declared, fishing a Dirham coin from my pocket and slamming it down like it was a ransom.
Silence.
Arif stared at the coin like it was bad luck, his hands shaking as if I’d messed up his precious records. Fakhruddin, who didn’t care for silly fights, waved me away like he’d seen worse office dramas.
I walked out – head up, no coin, but proud – having stood up to the photocopy rules and lived to brag about it. Later, Fakhruddin quietly gave me back the coin, probably thinking the whole thing was no big deal.
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