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The Cyber Cafe on Dubai's Rolla Street

There is an Internet cafe in Bur Dubai that is a throwback to the late Nineties. I remember going to 'Net parlours' when cyber connectivity was gaining ground in India to check the inbox of my fledgling hotmail account; we were charged by the hour.

IN THOSE DAYS, EVERY NEIGHBOURHOOD — AND STREET CORNER — HAD A MANDATORY NET PARLOUR; AT TIMES, THERE WERE TWO OR THREE IN THE SAME NEIGHBOURHOOD, AND UNDERCUTTING THE HOURLY RATE USED TO BE THE BUSINESS STRATEGY TO STAY AHEAD IN THE RACE.

As time went by and prices of personal computers dipped and broadband became a way of life, people started getting connected at home. Cyber cafes started closing shops in India around three to four years ago. In Dubai, I don’t know exactly when the cyber cafe bubble burst, but I do see a few of them thriving in the South Asian ‘ghettos’ — Karama, Deira and Bur Dubai. “Many South Asians don’t want to invest in PCs and broadband connections, they would rather save the money... They are here to make money, and they never lose sight of that,” is the usual explanation trotted out.

Which brings me back to the bustling Internet cafe in Bur Dubai, owned by this dour-faced Malayalee gentleman who barely speaks English. Non-Malayalees gesticulate to him when they enter the parlour (“Can we please do our thing?” is translated into a pithy pointing to an empty seat in front of a PC), and he nods his head violently, always in the affirmative (who doesn’t like the idea of customers and more customers?)

The place charges four dirhams per hour — a price point that totally justifies the aversion to get a connection 
at home. I know of scores of folks who are regulars: they spend a couple of hours — every evening, once they get back home from work, or on weekends when they have all the time in the world — inside tiny cubicles squished together on the smallish shop-floor.

I’ve been to this cafe a few times, mostly to take printouts on weekends, and I am always fascinated at the sight that greets me: working-class expats, mostly Indians, Pakistanis and Filipinos, video-chatting away furiously with family and friends back home.

I have seen young girls tremulously wiping away tears as they chat with their mothers or their boyfriends in another country; fathers trying to bravely hold back their voices from breaking as they speak to their young kids somewhere in Cochin or Manila; wistful smiles on faces of those separated from their best friends; determined conversations about the exchange rate, and whether today is a good day to remit money to a bank account in the home country; 
and so on.

The other day, I eavesdropped on a man instructing his wife back in India (he was talking in Hindi, which is why I managed to comprehend) to administer ‘English medicines’ to his ailing mother, not homeopathy.

Simultaneously, in another cubicle, another gent was complaining — almost indulgently — to a friend back home that even though he was sending half his entire salary to his parents, they still wanted more. And a woman was making her young son stand in front of the camera so that his grandparents — somewhere in Pakistan — could see how tall he’s suddenly become.

In Dubai, they say, every day is a 
new one. Have a blast, live life to the fullest: the city is all about carpe diem. For these people at the cyber cafe on Bur Dubai’s Rolla Street, the theme of ‘seize the day’ is entirely misplaced. 
 As one of my friends remarked wisely, “They are not living for the day... they are living for the future... and their future lies elsewhere, not here.”

• OPINION
• Dubai