'Khaleej Times is my window to the world'

Dubai - KT was the first newspaper delivered in Al Ain, says Dr Reza Khan, who has been in UAE for more than 30 years

Everyone knows Dr Reza Khan. Or, okay - everyone in the UAE even remotely connected to the environment knows Dr Reza Khan. He's been here for over 30 years. He's the parks man, wildlife expert, bird expert, the go-to for all matters green and conservation-related. Mohammad Reza Khan first joined the Al Ain Zoo in 1983. He's been a journalist. He's been a professor of biology. He's now the principal wildlife specialist at the 'Leisure Facilities Department', what was earlier known by its much less millennial-friendly name - the Public Parks and Horticulture Department at Dubai Municipality.
He remembers the '80s when there were only two roads in Al Ain, and people could easily walk across town. The road to Jebel Hafeet was only halfway complete.
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In those days, Khaleej Times would be delivered to the Zoo, 10km away from the main city. "There was a Pathan gentleman delivering newspapers on his motorcycle and I caught hold of him in 1984 in Al Ain. And he was not delivering it everyday - he couldn't!" One of the best things about Dr Khan is how readily he laughs. He says, "Al Ain Zoo, at that time, was an island, 10km from the main city. Al Ain was a city of only two roads. We could walk through the city in half-hour's time. But also, the membership couldn't be made on a yearly basis because delivery wasn't 100 per cent sure. He was an old man, and he would come on two days or three days. "If I was very lucky." he says, "I would get it four days a week - maximum. But three days was the usual". Khaleej Times was the first newspaper that was getting delivered in Al Ain. "From 1984-2007, we were subscribers. Now we read it online."
Dr Khan arrived in the UAE on December 15, 1983 from Dhaka, where he was assistant professor of wildlife biology at Dhaka University in the department of zoology. "In 1971 I was a journalist in Bangladesh. I was basically a biologist. But in those days, I was a correspondent for Paigham in Bangladesh. I moved to Dubai Zoo on June 1, 1989." For these past decades, he's lived in the Dubai Zoo. Even today, he wakes up in his house on the zoo grounds, to the sounds of bulbuls and myna birds, crows, doves and sunbirds. He knows them all.
He's been reading Khaleej Times since his Al Ain Zoo days. Dr Khan says, "Khaleej Times connected the readers here with the subcontinent. It was popular in Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia. You had columns from there. It was a source of knowledge. Khaleej Times was a forerunner. It brought relevant issues to the people before anyone else.
"Everyone would depend on it. I was one of the luckiest fellows. Western expats didn't get it because the Pathan couldn't deliver it. Maybe, he was keen to deliver it to me," he laughs.
Does he think these days that kids read papers? "I came to the UAE with my three children, and my three children have produced five grandchildren. My grandchildren do read. My eldest grandson and granddaughter, in grade 3, are good readers. They read a lot of books. But newspapers, no. They haven't seen it. It's a different generation. Newspapers are of no interest to them. But a children's magazine like Young Times (which he used to write for) - would be of interest, I think, and we would definitely subscribe to it."
He says so with grandfatherly affection, "My eldest grandson is a master of dinosaurs. He knows all the names, which even I do not know." And no, there's humility - "He doesn't get it from me, he gets it from school. I can tell him about the living history of birds".
Dr Khan wants to see more local coverage in KT, especially environmental issues, need to be highlighted. Like pollution, degradation of the wilderness and animal rights - "people are still going with tigers to the beach."
nivriti@khaleejtimes.com

• Dubai