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. “Life was hard in Dubai and saving every fil was critical.” Within months of arriving, he joined his family’s modest textile shop in Meena Bazaar as a salesman earning Rs100 a month — money he saved almost entirely.…