Carrying on their karma in Karama

Karama lies between Bur Dubai and the gleaming glass tower blocks of the financial and commercial heart of the emirate.

The Karama mohallah, ‘Little India,’ is largely inhabited by people from the Indian sub-continent although there is a sprinkling of Europeans and others.

Karama, meaning ‘dignity’ in Arabic, is a quiet place suited to its name in comparison to Bur Dubai, the main business hub known for thrusting sub-continental entrepreneurs. The streets are well paved, parking is regulated, rubbish is collected. Upmarket neighbourhoods of Bangalore would be very like Karama if the infrastructure was well maintained.

The district’s residents live in three to four storey buildings with shops and restaurants on the ground floor. Middle class families dwell in two and three bedroom apartments in well appointed buildings with gyms and reception monitors. The rents are high while lower middle class residents live in white blocks with low rents and basic facilities.

The traditional food market is located in a modern Arab rose-coloured building. Fresh fish, poultry, meat, vegetables and fruits delight Karama shoppers determined to carry on life as if they were at home.  The single storey souk contains shops selling counterfeit designer bags - Louis Vuitton and Prada selling well-made in China, carpets from Iran and clothing and costume jewelery from India.

Peaceful coexistence

Some years ago an Indian decided to construct a mosque in Karama, a fine building near the market and souq. The mosque took years to construct because the donor insisted on paying for everything himself: when he had money, work continued; when he had none, work was suspended. While Muslims can pray in this and other mosques, Hindus go to the Shiva and Krishna temples and gudwara in Bur Dubai and Christians to St. Mary’s Catholic church in Oud Metha or the Protestant church near Jebel Ali. Friday, the rest day for the emirate’s Muslim majority, is the day of devotions for all.

Filipinos fill St. Mary’s church and spill over into the courtyard to listen prayers broadcast in Tagalog. The faithful attending the weekly communal service overflow the mosque in the old quarter in Bur Dubai and bow in prayer in the square and on the pavement in front of shuttered shops.

When the Hindu temples open in the evening, the narrow alleyway leading to the temples, located just behind this mosque, reverberate with the Muslim call to prayer as Hindus pause to buy offerings of flowers and sweets. Karama dwellers are mindful of spending these days. The post-millennium boom is over. Dubai has not recovered from the global financial melt-down of 2008. Many firms have reduced staff, some have closed down, sending sub-continentals packing. Several families have returned to India in the upmarket building where I stay with friends who have lived in Dubai since 1993. They are fortunate.  The wife has a job in media, the husband consults for the government, the son, a recent graduate, is employed by an interior design firm, and the daughter, a doctor, is studying for exams.

An expatriate Arab businesswoman observed that the commercial community in Dubai has not learned its lesson from the crash of 2008. Bankers and big firms ‘are committing the same mistakes,’ she said.  They continue to borrow for glitzy projects that may not produce revenue while the government carries on mounting expensive events.

Although Dubai remains a major hub for air traffic between East and West and all three terminals in the international airport swarm with transit passengers, the number of tourists has fallen. Taxi drivers complain that they have few fares while hotels, once overbooked for the Dubai shopping festival, have rooms free.  Malls are packed with people but many are window shopping rather than buying cut price goods.

In a bid to ease the strain of the downturn on low income local families, the president of the seven-emirate federation, Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan allocated $555,000 million to pay off personal loans taken out by 6,830 defaulting Emirati citizens whose debts are less than $277,000. Emiratis imprisoned for debt are set to be released while cases against others to be dropped. Indebted expatriates are not so fortunate. Some have simply fled, leaving behind furniture and cars.