Peons, Clerks and a Cadillac: Pakistanis in a Dubai Bank
Peons, Clerks and a Cadillac: Pakistanis in a Dubai Bank
This story is for the Pakistanis who kept a certain Dubai bank running in the seventies, long before anyone thought of “shared services” or “offshoring”, and when hierarchy was as visible as the nameplates on the doors.
Akram
Mohamed Akram was our “chief typist”, a rank that never appeared on any organisation chart but lived securely in our minds and in his confident stride. He commanded a small empire of keys and carbons, assisted by two loyal lieutenants: the ever‑earnest Ashok Hinduja and the boyish Sunil Kataria, both from Mumbai and both condemned — so we thought then — to a lifetime of typing letters of credit. Akram himself was unforgettable: tall, with lips a permanent red and a passing resemblance to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto that made us feel vaguely geopolitical just walking past his desk. He spoke in a rich Pakistani accent, opening every conversation in a musical tone, his voice carrying in rhythmic waves across the banking hall, as reliable a sound as the clatter of his beloved typewriters.
Arif
Then there was tall Arif Kolsawala, the Pakistani who served as chief lieutenant in Accounts, guardian of our mysterious nostro and vostro accounts. He wore long‑sleeved shirts over longer trousers, as if cloth, too, had to balance on both sides of the ledger. With a neat black moustache parked over his upper lip, Arif took it upon himself to safeguard the bank’s stationery as though it were gold reserves, forever watching who took an extra pad or a few too many paper clips. Any suspected extravagance was promptly reported to his master, the accounts officer Fakhruddin, with the solemnity of a man uncovering a great financial scandal.
Hussain
Below this sat the next layer of hierarchies in the bank: the farashes, or, in that rather unkind word we used then, peons. Hussain was their chief — a “head peon” in everything but official title, just as Akram was never formally chief typist. Senior and trusted, Hussain alone was allowed to walk into the accountant’s office, lift the out‑tray without knocking, and ferry anything requiring the accountant’s signature to his in‑tray. He even had a small chair stationed by the accountant’s door, a modest throne from which he ruled the corridors with the calm authority of a man who knew every file, every face, and every shortcut through the building.
Riaz
Hussain’s influence did not stop at the swing doors of the banking hall. He had managed the great Dubai miracle of the time: getting his son Riaz out of Karachi and into a job. Riaz, darker and quieter, followed his father up and down the corridors, learning the invisible routes from telex room to strongroom, from canteen to manager’s office. If nepotism was the rule of law, no one begrudged it; in those days a job in Dubai was worth several uncles and at least one cousin’s pride.
Noor
At the very top of the peon pecking order, at least in his own estimation, stood Noor Mohamed, the manager’s peon and the shortest farash in the building. What he lacked in height he made up in ceremony. Noor was an understated authority: he opened doors, produced English tea in fine china, and carried the manager’s briefcase everywhere as though it contained the secrets of the Bank of England. The briefcase was probably light, but that was beside the point. Noor spoke little to the rest of us, keeping his voice and his loyalty for his master, the omnipotent manager.
Rashid
Then there was Rashid, the manager’s driver, who lived in the servants’ quarters of the manager’s villa and answered every ring of the telephone as if it were a starting gun. On weekdays he drove a Cadillac — a great gas‑guzzler of a car, at a time when petrol was one dirham a litre and no one spoke of carbon footprints. On weekends he transformed into a cricketer, turning out for the bank’s team with a joy that no overtime payment could match.
Hameed
Hameed Khan was the bank’s messenger, and if Akram’s typewriter was the sacred machine, Hameed’s motorbike was its noisy, two‑wheeled cousin. He rode between the branches in Deira, Al Shamal, Satwa and Bandar Taleb, carrying cheques and documents in a battered brief case. You always knew when Hamid was in the office: he arrived in a gust of hot air, sweat‑streaked, loud, and laughing at jokes only he fully understood. Between rides he could be found in the canteen, gulping water and offering a running commentary on cricket, politics and the failings of the traffic police.
Nasir
Nasir Khan, the diminutive tea boy who was probably already in his fifties, and who always seemed to favour the ladies over lads like me, presided over what I liked to think of as the Republic of Tea. Tea and coffee made in his trusty Russell Hobbs kettle and served in an army of white porcelain cups, he moved from desk to desk, lacing the air with steam and the quiet clink of china. From his lowly vantage point he saw more than most of us: who was anxious, who was in love, who had received a letter from home. His tea and coffee were strong, sweet, and delightfully democratic; they tasted exactly the same whether you were a British officer, an Indian or Pakistani clerk, or a farash.
Ahmed
The peons had their own order, as precise as any grade structure. Hussain was the senior man, Riaz the heir apparent. Noor shone with borrowed authority as the manager’s peon. Rashid and Hamid added glamour by association — one with the Cadillac, the other with his motorbike and his endless stories. And then there was Ahmad, another Pakistani farash who, with his good English and neat handwriting, could easily have been a junior clerk. He was proud of his filing system in the bills department and guarded it with a librarian’s zeal, placing each paper in its proper home as if the whole bank might collapse if a file went astray.
Maryam
There were a few women, too, from Pakistan. Maryam was one of them: petite, beautiful, and utterly no‑nonsense. She handled maturing deposits and renewals, that is, the green certificates that marked a fixed deposit’s birth and rebirth. You could always spot her in the crowd by the sheet of green in her hand and the expression that warned any would‑be Romeo that she had no time for nonsense. In a hall full of men talking loudly, Maryam moved with quiet efficiency, doing the important work of making money disappear and reappear at just the right moment.
On Saturdays, when the bank’s cricket team took the field, these hierarchies blurred a little. The young British officers, the senior Indian and Pakistani staff, the clerks, the drivers, the peons — they all wore the same white too‑loose flannels and argued, without malice, about whether Pakistan’s attack was better than India’s batting. Rashid and Hamid played with particular pride; for them, representing the bank with bat or ball was a highlight to be discussed all week.
I did not realise it then, in that tall, echoing banking hall of the seventies, but the bank’s heartbeat was not in the vault or the manager’s office. It was in Akram’s rhythmic typing, in Arif’s careful counting of paper clips, in Hussain’s steady shuffle between in‑trays and out‑trays, in Maryam’s green certificates, in Hamid’s dusty motorbike, in Nasir’s steaming cups of tea. This little fraternity of Pakistanis — clerks, farashes, drivers, tea boys — held together a world far bigger than any of us understood, while we young lads worried about hanging out with friends.
This story is for them.
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