Time machines do not exist, except when someone spends a lifetime preserving the pieces of a world that has disappeared.

They exist for those who choose to look: In old letters, photographs of places that no longer exist, electricity bills from decades ago, postcards, and crisp telegrams kept deliberately short because every extra word cost more.

And Shaukat Rana Muhammad Rafi's museum, housed in his own home, is proof. Past a well-kept living room with elaborately decorated chairs and sofas, he is more than happy to show us the many lives he has lived since the 1960s.

The time machine’s engines begin to turn.

We move through two rooms that hold old UAE as Shaukat Rana remembers it, he shares bits and pieces of his own story. “My father came in 1966, I came here in 1968. I was eight years old at the time, and since my childhood, I have loved history," he explains.…