The Desert Rose - Chapter 10

The Target

Work at the Ghusseli villas continued in a war footing. Labourers worked like machines with utmost precision. There were three shifts daily. This was possible as the new group of labourers arrived as promised by Ibrahim Fardan. Menon slept hardly for five hours every night. So did Abdulla and Jasbir. Ibrahim used to visit at 6-00 A.M every day and stayed the whole morning.

In fifteen days, Menon was able to complete forty five villas in all respects. In another two weeks the remainder of the villas had to be completed. It was a real challenge for Menon. As the deadline approached there was more vigour and enthusiasm among everyone. Finally the D-Day arrived and Menon proudly announced to the Consultants by letter that all the eighty villas were substantially completed and are ready for inspection.

 The road section of Dubai Municipality completed the internal roads of the villa complex, the Dubai Electricity Company had completed the electric substation and installed the necessary transformer. Likewise the Dubai Water Department and Cable and Wireless also had finished their work.

The Ruler’s office specifically instructed the Consultants that they were going to take over the villas with immediate effect. Any further repairs, if any, could be completed during the tenure of the one year free maintenance period.

Keys were prepared with tags of villa numbers and room names. The last day of the revised contract, as ordered by H H The Sheikh, Menon drove to the Consultants’ office and met their Managing Director and handed over the keys to him.

“Congratulations Mr Menon. I knew that you would do that” the MD smiled.

“Thanks Mr Bhatia. It was with your co-operation”. Menon was humble.

The site was cleaned completely as H H The Sheikh was to visit the next day and hand over the keys of the villas to the local Arabs. A podium was constructed and chairs were laid over it.

H H The Sheikh arrived on time. Ibrahim Fardan greeted him.

“Mabruk, Mohandis (Congratulations!!! Engineer)” H H The Sheikh smiled while shaking hands with Menon. Menon felt so proud and tears filled his eyes, but he controlled his emotion. The local Arabs were standing in a queue to receive the keys. H H The Sheikh handed over the keys one by one to them while talking to everyone in between.

When the keys handing was over, H H The Sheikh asked Menon to go to him. He handed over an envelope to him and said ”Mabruk marrathani” (Congratulations again) and again shook hands with him and left the scene.

Ibrahim smiled at Menon. “I am leaving, too. This Thursday, come to my farm at Hatta. Six O’ clock would be fine. We will celebrate”. Ibrahim shook hands with Menon and left.

Menon rushed to his office. He was in a hurry to open the envelope given to him by H H The Sheikh. He washed his face and ordered a tea. Reddy, the office boy, obliged within a short time. Sipping the tea, he opened the envelope. There was a letter of Commendation from HH The Sheikh, praising the Company’s efforts to complete the contract one month before the stipulated time. Special mention was made about Menon’s hard work and management of the project. He was thrilled. He was more thrilled to find a demand draft in his name, of Dirhams 100,000/- with a note pinned, saying “for the hard work of Engineer Menon.” He wanted to share the happy news with Ibrahim Fardan.

He sped fast to his head office and divulged the news to Ibrahim Fardan.

“You deserve it, Menon, Congratulations!!! We will celebrate this tomorrow, Thursday at my Hatta Farm”. Ibrahim was full of glee.

The bank was only till 2.00 PM and Menon hurried to Bur Dubai to encash the draft. He gave a wireless message to Jasbir Singh to meet him at the Jebel Ali labour camp in the evening. 95% of the labour force working at the Ghusseli project was relocated to this camp and they were assigned to other projects in town. Only a skeleton labour was detained at the Ghusseli project for carrying out repairs, if any.

Menon reached the labour camp at 6-00 PM. Jasbir Singh was already there. He asked him to tell the labour to assemble at the central yard.

When all of them had arrived Menon said.

“The company is very happy to have completed the Ghusseli project before time. We thank you for the same. Without your hard work and sweat, we would never have been able to achieve this historic goal.”

With that, he handed over an envelope containing Dirhams 30,000/- to Jasbir Singh and said.

“Divide this equally among the workers” He gave another Dirhams 10,000/- To Jasbir Singh and said”This is for you”.

Jasbir Singh was flabbergasted. With tears in his hand he said.

“Sirji, this is just wonderful. The workers will do more hard work now. Thanks Sirji and I will be at your disposal 24 hours wherever you want me to work.”

He held Menon’s both hands and lifted them to his eyes.

Thursday evening, at 5-00 PM, Menon packed his bag. He called Fernando to meet him and handed over a Chivas Regal bottle to him. “You enjoy this tonight here. I am off to Hatta.”

He turned his car at the airport road towards Al- Khawanij. He turned right at the Khawanij roundabout and drove straight. At Aweer junction, he turned left and he was on the Hatta road.

After the lapse of half an hour, the landscape changed. The sand dunes gave way to brown stony soil with mountains starting to adorn the horizon. It was Hatta territory. There was greenery on both sides. Hatta always got ample rainfall and hence the vegetation everywhere. Menon whistled an old song of Hemant Kumar and sped at 140 km in his Oldsmobile car.

When he reached Ibrahim’s farm, there were more cars parked at the parking lot. Many of Ibrahim’s friends were guests on that evening.

“Namaskaaram, sir” Nathur (watchman) Abdulla greeted Menon. He was fully in charge of the farm. Abdulla was an old timer. He had reached Dubai from Calicut beaches by a launch, many years back. After toiling for years he became close to the Fardan family.

There were many tents erected at the central ground. Already Arabs have occupied some camps. Ibrahim came out and greeted Menon.

“We will start at 8-00 PM” he said.

The function started with a Folk Arabic dance with swords. Young boys were performing. Then was the turn of dancing by grown up Arabs with sticks. Many tables were arranged with different kinds of food on them. Some had already started their meals. A well-known Arab singer started to sing with his orchestra. Menon was reminded of the TV shows of this singer.

The dinner was sumptuous with innumerable delicacies. Menon could not eat much as he was not having his usual dose of appetizer drink. The proceedings came to a close at 1-00 AM on Friday. Everyone retired to the respective tents.