And then, luck smiles…
Today will not be another day for some Dubai residents — and visitors too. Today, they will smile better and breathe a little easier, as they go to bed richer. Today, they would have won a slice of the DSF raffle. Rajeev Nair portrays a day in DSF vis-à-vis the month-long celebration’s most participated event — the raffle draws — meeting the winners and talking to those who make it all happen
Photograph: Rajan
This morning, the octagonal raffle-box is empty. Hit by the desert wind, it takes a quick rotation but fights back to gain control. The wind pushes it further; it relents with hesitation. Now, at this moment in time, any movement it takes makes no difference.
Last night was another matter. There were 80,000 bits of paper inside – each one, the key to a fortune. A little shove – and luck takes a twist, a turn.
Last night, there were the arc lights. Fireworks had set the backdrop. Fountains sprang to life, sound boxes blared, and people gaped at the raffle-box with eagerness, sometimes with nonchalance – but hope, unfailingly, welling up.
Not waiting for the wind, many hands turn the box round; after all, luck needs a little push. And when all is set, the entertainers leave the stage and the speeches are made, a hand ploughs through the box’s innards. Fingers scramble; two paper pieces cling to them. It is a defining moment – for two lives. Which one will change for good? Which one will stay on, its course unaltered?
The hand thumbs off one, lifts out the other, and the name on it is read out aloud: A winner is born. Telephone lines will now buzz to life; the winner, probably, readying to sleep, will go to bed richer, not perhaps able to believe the singular stroke of luck that, for many, will hopefully lend life a new course.
Raffles come announced; luck comes as it always does – without fuss. The hullabaloo will follow later – the interviews, the felicitations, the well-wishers, the envious eyes…
At the Dubai Shopping Festival, luck favours, simply, those who buy.
Luck’s abundance comes in the zeroes that follow a one. The more, the merrier. And in this Arabian city, during one month of the Dubai Shopping Festival, the zeroes numb you with their lavishness. Dhs100 million – how does one spell it out in figures? Dhs100 million is the total prize money that Dubai visitors and residents will take home during the one-month shopping extravaganza – from the three principal raffles organised by the DSF Committee, and from the countless lucky draws hosted by the malls, supermarkets, fashion retailers and neighbourhood stores.
The raffles are an eagerly awaited event. Year after year, people pin their hopes on that one stroke of luck that will change their lives — for good. For some, winning a fortune is just another go in life — they are the ones who have already made their millions. For others, even with a lot less number of zeroes appended to the winning “one,” luck comes for the better, a remarkable better, that should see debts cleared, burdens eased and aspirations achieved.
And when luck smiles over Dubai, it is hardly selective. It makes a random draw and encompasses in its stride the rich and the not-so-rich, men and women, the aged and infants; indeed, luck doesn’t differentiate.
A man who once slept in the hills, lost in the wilderness of Ras Al Khaimah (see box), as an early fortune-seeker in the Arab world, finds that he can live like a millionaire in a fancy waterfront apartment in New Dubai…
A man who borrowed Dhs5 to buy a telephone card to call home gets richer by half a million in one single stroke of fortune…
A man who hoped to help his friend for the marriage of his daughter finds an unexpected source of money opening up…
A man who hesitates to spend money because he has no money, still makes “missed calls” on the mobile phone of the DSF committee, finding it hard to believe that he is richer already by Dhs500,000…
A child wins his father five kilogramme worth of gold…
A doting father wins one kilogramme of gold after he bought gold for his son’s marriage…
There is always a story to the ways of luck. Sometimes it makes human interest copy. Sometimes it suffices with a quote: “I never expected this…” Whichever way you look at it, raffle draws are a major ‘draw’ of DSF — if only for the sheer change it brings about on human lives.
Raffle winners, quite often, are hard to pin down. Today, they are all over the dailies and the television, smiling lavishly as they collect the prizes. Tomorrow, they are social recluses, wary of every telephone call they receive… They have won it big and God alone knows how they will manage all this money! Unknown people are not to be entertained at this crucial juncture in life, and no thanks, they don’t need any additional publicity.
However, what Ibrahim Saleh, chief operation officer, Dubai Shopping Festival and head of the raffle committee (see box), finds absolutely gratifying is the way raffles touch people’s lives. “Yes, there are winners who are already wealthy and another win might not mean anything for them, but there are others who participate in the raffles knowing fully well how it would change their lives. I have seen how money, indeed, goes to those who are really in need.”
Abdulla Hassan Amiri, operation co-ordinator, who is more like the “face” of the DSF raffle, seen every night on Dubai TV congratulating winners on stage, says every winner makes him happier, more so, because he has been hearing stories and meeting people who in a lifetime of sweat and toil would not have managed to save even a fraction of the huge win they have taken home this DSF.
A DSF raffle draw follows a well-delineated procedure, which starts the night before. That is when the contents of the huge raffle-boxes in the main stage at Global Village, where the daily draws are held, are emptied into the bags of courier companies, which transport it to a secure place. These coupons are for the grand draw on the final day: Feb. 12, when with one stroke of luck, one person will win Dhs10 million cash, another, ten Nissan vehicles and a third, 100 kg of gold (and good lady-luck, what happens if all the three are won by one?)
Every day presents new winners at the DSF office; they have been informed of their previous night’s win and they are at the office to make sure that the news has not been a nasty prank (oh yes, crank calls made by friends are a flavour of the season)… The committee members collect the coupons, verify the details, ask for proof of identity and welcome them to the prize distribution ceremony that evening.
Meanwhile, the raffle boxes, the little ones strategically placed all over Dubai — for gold, the Nissan and the Lexus — have started brimming up. Every sale worth the stipulated amount fetches the customer the coupon, which goes into the raffle box. Inside, the names are a microcosm of the cultural plurality of Dubai — Arya, Mohammed, Isha, Katherine, Keith, Yasmine… they are names now, maybe winners tonight.
Aramex, a transportation solution provider, is entrusted with the task of delivering all the gold coupons from 53 collection points all over Dubai to the Global Village by 8pm. Hussein Hachem, general manager, UAE, Aramex, says the company has a dedicated team of couriers and supervisors on the job, who start the DSF raffle box delivery work at 4pm every day.
Aramex has to collect from 47 points for the weekly gold draw for the prize of 5kg gold too, for which it puts additional staff. “Traffic is a general problem, for all,” says Hachem. “We start early to make sure there is no delay in delivery. We have some 20 people on the job and we have dispatchers who are in constant contact with the couriers.”
The company has been doing the DSF job for the past nine years, and never once has there been a delay, he adds. During the Eid holidays, this year, when traffic came to virtual standstill, Aramex still managed to deliver the boxes on time, with some timely help from the DSF committee and the Dubai police, says Ajmal Khan, one of the first couriers with the company, who today leads Ibrahim, Jaudeen, Hussein, Feroz Khan, Thaha, Majid and Pazhani on the daily routine of collecting the boxes.
Similarly, the raffle boxes of Lexus and Nissan coupons are also transported to the Global Village, where the main stage comes to life with the Dubai TV crew taking camera positions ready to transmit the draw, live on television. The venue has a dreamy feel: Ten Nissan cars line one end of the huge stage; three Lexus vehicles deck up the other. In the centre is the gold raffle venue, replete with a huge poster of Indian film actor Amitabh Bachchan, serving as the brand ambassador of the DSF commemorative coin.
Arc lights lit up the stage, and huge sound boxes, wrapped in plastic to drown a little of the decibel level, come alive with Arabic music. Abdullah Amiri of DSF reaches the venue much earlier. He must welcome the guests of the evening – today, a beauty queen, a gold and jewellery entrepreneur…
There is the constant backdrop of the gushing fountains – playing with hues myriad. And at 9pm, the sky is lit with fireworks. Together with the fog machines that cloak the stage in surreal charm, this space is suddenly the hotspot, the most happening place in Global Village. Little crowds had formed; others walking past the stage glancing at the cars, and then looking at them again. It is hard to take your eyes off a fortune – seemingly just within your grasp.
Brisk sales happen at the coupon counters near the stage — they cater for the last minute entrants to the draw. Many who have purchased the coupon stay put — after all, luck could descend on them just an hour later.
AM Anil Kumar, an Indian, is all smiles tonight – he is a winner. He flashes the lucky coupon that has fetched him and his nine other friends the three Lexus cars. The ten, most of them staying together in a flat in Sharjah, had pooled the money to buy the ticket. It has been a routine for the last six or seven years, and Anil Kumar has always been the “team leader,” the man who initiates the purchase. And the friends always bought the ticket in Anil’s name.
A debit collector with Al Ghandi, Anil hasn’t won at raffle draws before, nor have his friends. This time, when they purchased the ticket at Deira City Centre, Anil did a little mental math, totalled the figures on the ticket number to his lucky number, seven, and then, forgot all about the draw.
The very next night, he was sipping tea at a neighbouring cafeteria when an Arab sound crackled on his cell-phone: “Mabrook… congratulations… you have won the Lexus raffle.” Another call followed, and a third, this from a person, who saw the draw on television. Anil was not one to be fooled. He took it with a pinch of caution, walked to his room, whispered the good news to his friends, and decided that the celebrations would begin only after the news is confirmed.
Next day, his mobile phone not ceasing to ring, Anil confirmed the news at the DSF office, and now, he is at the Global Village, with his friends Mujeeb, Aziz and Jenu, to claim the prize. The others who will also get one-tenth share each are Mohammed Ali, Subair, Rajeev, Shaijal, Karim and Mohan, who is Anil’s brother.
They have decided to exchange the cars for cash, and Anil has no doubts about what to do with the money: Split it equally among the ten. That is about Dhs48,000 each.
It may not be the kind of money for middle-class individuals looking for one lucky break, but it still would make their life easier. Anil, for one, looks at clearing off some debts, while Mujeeb has decided to shell out a share of the money for the marriage of his friend’s daughter. “Even as we took the ticket, Mujeeb had said he would give the money for the marriage if we won. I guess, it is the luck of that girl which fetched us this prize,” says Anil. The ten-member team might take more raffle coupons but Anil and his friends chorus: “We are not greedy.”
Atif Ilyas, a student who has fetched part-time work at the main stage as volunteer, smiles through the story: He has been listening to such tales over the last fortnight. He is witness to many winners, and he recalls the story of a manual worker in a construction company, who has no driving licence, and won the three Lexus cars. “He had pooled Dhs10 each from 24 other friends to buy the coupon,” says Ilyas, adding with a philosophical note: “It is the needy who win.”
Needy or not, a win at a raffle can recover the cost of the purchase that on the first hand brought you the ticket. That is Mohammed Azmi, a UAE national’s take on he winning one kilogramme of gold. He had purchased jewellery for his son’s marriage and now, is richer with gold. “Luck is a part of life,” he says, and “winning raffles feels good.”
S Unnikrishnan, another Indian who won the Nissan raffle, hasn’t stopped smiling ever since the telephone call that brought him the glad tidings. Anyway, he smiles a lot, and the win has only given him another reason to spread the joy.
A draughtsman with a contracting company in Sharjah, he had tried his luck with three or four coupons, all linked to telephone card purchases. He has been in Dubai for seven years; this is his first win, and he intends to sell the car. He has some plans with the money – building a house is a priority.
That, indeed, is virtually every expatriate Indian’s dream – to own a house. Unni, as he is called, has always believed in luck, as in God, and the win gives him all the more reason to “thank the good heavens.”
Anil Kumar now collects the prize from Abdullah Amiri. He throws a thumbs-up to his friends; they reciprocate and the action is caught on television. The camera also captures other faces – some eager ones looking forward to the next draw, the one that might make a few among them climb those eight steps to the podium — to riches, and some fame.
The arc lights are put off; darkness envelopes the stage but for the gleam of the cars. The fountains behind still spring to life, the fireworks are done for the day. The festive din from the nearby pavilions is dying down. The crowds have thinned.
And yet, much after the draws are done and the winners return home, there, by the stage, will still stay put a few people, some fresh faces staring into luck’s little turf. It is hard to read the emotion on their faces.
Luck, tonight, has side-stepped them but they aren’t complaining. There is a tomorrow, and tomorrow, a new day, could also hold a new future. Meanwhile, they can dream on, and their dreams can take wings….
In Dubai, in this 30-day festival, theirs are the dreams that indeed come true…
Touching lives
DSF’s chief raffle draws are for gold and cars but in this tenth anniversary year, there is more cash to be won too, than ever before
Ibrahim Saleh, chief operation officer, DSF, remembers meeting with a winner, from Bangladesh. He is a driver working with a local family in Ajman. He had spent close to one-third of his monthly salary on the Lexus raffle coupon. “He couldn’t believe that he had won the draw, and he was giving us missed calls on our mobiles expecting us to call back even after he was informed of the win,” recalls Saleh.
Winning, obviously, hasn’t changed old habits. Big money has come his way but the man still knows that every fil not spent is every fil earned. It really doesn’t matter that he has just won close to Dhs500,000.
Tales that strike a chord fall aplenty on the ears of the DSF raffle committee members. After all, it has rolled out a raffle extravaganza in the tenth year of DSF offering Dhs50 million in prizes — apart from the Dhs50 million worth of prizes that DSF sponsors, support sponsors and participating outlets give out by way of their own individual promotions.
The DSF committee directly co-ordinates three big draws:
The gold raffle, held in association with the Gold and Jewellery Group, offers one kg of gold every day to one winner picked from those who purchase Dhs500 worth of gold jewellery; five kilogramme of gold (worth half a million dirhams) to one person weekly chosen from those who have bought the Dhs250-worth commemorative DSF gold coin; and finally Dhs5 million worth of gold – all of 100 kilogrammes picked at the grand draw.
The Nissan raffle gives away one Nissan every day to a lucky winner, who gets a coupon on purchases from Dhs25 onwards from DSF sponsors and support sponsors. Winners choose, again by luck, from ten Nissan models ranging from the high-end Nissan Patrol to the Nissan Sunny. The grand prize is all ten cars equivalent to Dhs1 million in cash.
The Lexus raffle, one of the highlights of DSF, is another daily draw that offers the winner three Lexus cars – LX470, RX330 and ES300 – worth approximately half a million dirhams. Five thousand coupons, priced Dhs250 each, go into the raffle. The grand draw is for Dhs10 million cash – all who have purchased the ticket getting two chances to win it big.
Saleh says the committee, over the last years, has gained enough expertise to handle the draws, which are held every night at the Global Village main stage. The challenge, however, is to ensure that all the coupons, from all over Dubai, reach the stage in time for the draw. “We ensure that no one loses a chance in buying the coupons or participating in the draw,” he says.
Security is of utmost importance in conducting the raffles, says Saleh. “We make sure there are no counterfeit coupons and we have a mechanism of identifying them, if any. We do random checks as well as scrutinise the winner’s coupon before handing over the prize.”
Preparations for the raffle draws start some three months in advance with the coupons printed in total privacy at a local printing press, which has been associated with the draws for the previous years.
In Dubai, it is not uncommon for many people to come together to purchase raffle coupons, pooling equal share of the price. However, the DSF committee’s responsibility on the prizes ends with distributing it to the winner; it does not look into the deals the winner might have made with his friends at the time of the purchase, says Saleh. “But if there is more than one name on the coupon, we call all of them and ensure the prize money is equally distributed among the people whose names figure in the raffle coupon.”
The DSF committee does not look into money generation from the raffles, says Saleh. “But at the end of the day, there are commercial interests involved because we purchase the cars, we advertise the event, we hire people for sales. All said, our priority with the raffles is not making money. It is about touching others’ lives through the money.”
Saleh believes in luck. “Yes, of course, who won’t believe in luck? There are 5,000 participants in the Lexus draw and only one wins. That is luck.”
Oh yes, lady luck smiles over Dubai – and DSF simply makes her smile with abundant flourish.
-RN
On millionaires’ turf
Kunjeedu Neduvanchery, the winner of a dream home in New Dubai, says winning the raffle draw or not, he is a lucky man
Some 35 years back, when Kunjeedu Neduvanchery, then an 18-year-old, was smitten by the ‘Dubai-bug’ sweeping through his home town in Malappuram, Kerala, he boarded a launch along with 40 others. The scheming boat crew showed the group of tired fortune-seekers a hill far from the shore, and said, beyond it lay the paradise they sought.
Beyond the hill, Neduvanchery discovered more hills. And more hills. And mounds of brown earth, rock-bits strewn in between, and little vegetation. Surely, by any guise, this wasn’t paradise. The group slept in the hills lost, tired, hopeless, hungry and tormented, five days before they spotted a goat. The first instinct was to kill and eat it when better sense prevailed. If there is a goat around, there must be a herdsman too.
And thus it came to pass that Neduvanchery reached the bedouin in the hills of Ras Al Khaimah who took him to a nearby town. With the permission of the policemen, he moved into Dubai, and found work as the domestic helper in an Arab family.
The dark hills are still fresh in his memory. So there is no mistaking the conviction in his words as he says: “Good fortune does not change me.” He regards himself as a lucky man, raffle wins or not. That he won a luxury apartment in Dubai in Eppco-Enco’s ‘Live Like a Millionaire,’ weekly DSF raffle draw is an aside for the man, who believes in leading a life, owing not a penny to anyone.
He has lived his whole life so: Staying clear of debts, he has slept all his life peacefully and now, this sudden stroke of luck is not going to affect him one wee bit.
It has been hard to pin down Neduvanchery for a chat. He is a driver with Kohinoor Bakery in Sharjah. He sets off for work at 4am, and he is relaxed enough to talk — about his good fortune — only at night. Finally, meeting him between work schedules, on Sheikh Zayed Road, Neduvanchery looks every inch the hardworking man that he is.
He hauls cartons of freshly baked breads and cakes; he collects the money, and on the seat inside his van are bags of coins — his day’s collection. Neduvanchery has been working all his life. When his school education came to an abrupt end and his family fell into hard times following his father’s death, the young boy took to travelling. He toured much of north India before settling down in Andhra Pradesh working in a tea-stall. A compelling urge took him back to Kerala, and to the “launch.”
After working with the Arab family, he moved to Abu Dhabi, and started off as helper to a spray-painter. Eight years later, he visited home — for the first time ever since he set foot in Arabia. He married, stayed on for some time, and returned to Abu Dhabi only to lose his job in an administrative move. He decided to return home, where he stayed on for two years.
In his second-coming to the UAE, he has been working with Kohinoor Bakery for the last 15 years. He has eight children from two marriages – his first wife died many years ago. As responsibilities go, he has eased most of them. He has built a house, married off all his daughters except one, who is still a student.
Luck, he says, has blessed him always. “I married off two of my daughters at the same time, and yet managed to return here without incurring any debts.” Debts are what he dreads and what he keeps at bay. He lives with the money he earns.
He had wanted to buy a DSF raffle ticket for the heck of it, and this year, he set aside Dhs300 for it. He bought a Lexus raffle, and with the Dhs50 that remained, bought a telephone card, from a petrol pump he frequents. He was looking into the other benefits that accrue from buying the card like tyre check-ups.
And so when he slept through the Eid holidays — these are only two days in a year that he sleeps totally at ease, he says — Neduvanchery wasn’t amused when a call came announcing him as the winner of the raffle for a luxury home in Dubai. One of his room-mates had last year been at the receiving end of a crank call, and Neduvanchery wasn’t going to fall prey. He slept on.
But next day, he clarified the prize at the petrol station, where he bought the card, and he holds close to his heart one remark an employee made to him: “Did you win the prize?” he asked. “I am happy for you; it is as if I myself have won it.”
Neduvanchery is a heart patient; he follows a strict diet, and he has little of fanciful dreams. He does not intend to stay in the flat; he will sell it. He has made no plans with the money: “God would have scheduled it all,” he says. His family is asking him to return home but Neduvanchery wants to work, and live a life, debt-free…
The raffle is just “another stroke of luck” in his life, an extension of the luck that has seen him through a burdened childhood, a journey through an ocean unknown, and mundane issues galore…
Luck, he feels, has been smiling on him… all along.
-RN
February 2005
