The-Polyester-Prince

Disembarking tourists, brought ashore in launches from the ships moored out in the
roadstead, were immediately surrounded by desperate Arab and Indian salesmen
and touts, offering cheap cameras, fountain pens, transistor radios and tooledleather
items. After making their purchases and taking a quick taxi tour around the
arid town, most were glad to get back to their P & O comfort and security. Aden had
an air of menace, of repressed resentment at its naked display of foreign military
and commercial self-interest. As Gavin observed: ‘For a thousand years or more
Aden had essentially belonged to the merchants of the world, be they South Yemeni
or foreign, while the people of its hinterland watched with jealousy and povertystricken
eyes from beyond its gates. But for the young Gujaratis hired by Besse &
Co, Aden was a kind of paradise and most recall their days there with great affection
and nostalgia. ‘we felt it was heaven,’s said Himatbhai Jagani, a former Besse
employee who had been born in Aden, the fifth generation of his family to live there
since their original migration from Gujarat early in the 19th century ‘It was tax free
virtually, and we never saw an electricity bill or rent bill till we left. For 14 of us in
our mess we paid only 400 shillings a month for food. We could save about half our
salary. It was very comfortable-we all missed that life.’ Home leave of three months
came after 21 months straight work in Aden or at one of the Besse outposts around
the Red Sea. The Besse employees went home with their savings to spend by P & 0
liners like the Chusan or Caledonian, sometimes by Flotte Lauro of Italy, and if
nothing else, India’s Moghul Lines.
While most of the British residents lived on the slopes above Steamer Point,
socialising at the Gold Mohar beach club nearby, the 15000 Indians clustered in a
few streets of the Crater district-Sabeel Street named after a refuge for stray and
injured animals set up by rains and Hindus, Danaraja Street, and Bencem Street,
named for the prosperous Jewish trading community that once thrived in Aden and
Yemen. The Besse & Co bachelor’s mess occupied four or five buildings nearby in
Aidroos Valley. The Crater had all the features of the Orientalist watercolours that
adorned European drawing rooms at the turn of the century, as described by
Governor Johnston:
Indian merchant families, the women in saris, the men in their white jodhpurish getup,
are taking the air, immaculate after the siesta. We drive around a market square
with fruit glowing on the stalls, and enter a narrow street fairly buzzing with exotic
life-pastry cooks, water-sellers, coffee makers, carpet merchants, all the usual
figures of the Oriental bazaar-and pervading the whole thing a strong hot smell Of
Spice.
The various expatriate communities lived in their own social circles, where, in the
way of ‘hardship posts’, attachments were strong and recalled with nostalgia in later
life. The Hindus from India were probably liked the least by the local Arabs-to whom
Muslims from India and Pakistan complained about India’s incorporation of Kashmir
and Hyderabad, but filled a need for white-collar staff that Aden’s schools could not
meet, and had their own social circle too.
While his brother Ramnikbhai worked in the automotive division, Dhirubhai was
assigned to the Shell products division of Besse. As a newly arrived youngster he
created an early splash, literally, by taking a bet while out helping bunker a ship in
the harbour that he could not dive off and swim to shore. The prize was an ‘icecream
party’s which he won, by swimming through waters that had seen occasional
shark attacks on swimmers outside the nets of its beaches.