From ship to success, Vasu Shroff shaped Dubai’s Indian community

Last updated: April 27, 2026 | 17:13

Those close to Vasu Shroff often described a life guided by simplicity, faith and service. Gulf News Archives

Arriving in 1952 as a teenager on a ship from Bombay (now Mumbai), Shroff stepped into a city that was little more than a trading outpost. “Every fil mattered,” he would later say, recalling a time when water was scarce, electricity non-existent, and daily life shaped by simplicity and surviva l.

His journey began in 1952, when a young Shroff boarded a ship from Bombay (now Mumbai) to Sharjah, paying $1.50 for a deck-class ticket. “Every fil mattered,” he would later recall.…