As a teenager, Suri worked on sailing ships plying the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean.
He first started as a maidan singer; he learned ṣawt by listening to phonograph records of performances by Abdullatif al-Kuwaiti.
[2] Suri's family was conservative and did not approve of his musical inclinations; his brother even threatened to shoot him if he did not give up singing.
[1][2][3] He consequently moved to Mumbai where he worked first as a boilerman, then as a mercantile broker and translator in the trade between Arab and Indian merchants.
[1] During this time Suri continued to practice and perfect his musical art, integrating Indian influences into his music – some of his lyrics were in Urdu as well as his native Arabic,[3] helping him secure a steady sale of his records (he recorded twelve 78-rpm shellac gramophone records in the early 1930s)[1] to an Indian as well as an Arabic audience.