Recommended reading:
How You Make Me Feel
CONTENT WARNING: Self harm, suicide, abuse, homophobia
How You Make Me Feel | Digital | (2022)
There is a lot I want to say about this piece. I draw in an unplanned, organic way. When things appear in my imagination, I add them in.
I imagined hands coming down as spiders, throwing out hooks, manipulating my face, my emotions, how I appear to the outside world.
The hooks would pull and tear at my skin, as the lines pulled through bone and sinew.
Why illustrate such violence towards oneself? Well for one thing it is better than hurting my physical body.
Through the process of this illustration I realised I was expressing some deep traumas that I have not really addressed directly. When I look back at the body of my work, it is obvious where I have subconsciously explored these feelings. In deciding to make this piece with more focus, I found that it drained and took a lot out of me. I worked on it tirelessly until it all came into focus, and when it did, I felt a tidal wave of exhaustion but also relief.
I feel like the time is right to share these stories. They will provide context for this work.
How You Make Me Feel | Digital | (2022)
CONTENT WARNING: Self harm, suicide, abuse, homophobia
There is a lot I want to say about this piece. I draw in an unplanned, organic way. When things appear in my imagination, I add them in.
I imagined hands coming down as spiders, throwing out hooks, manipulating my face, my emotions, how I appear to the outside world.
The hooks would pull and tear at my skin, as the lines pulled through bone and sinew.
Why illustrate such violence towards oneself? Well for one thing it is better than hurting my physical body.
Through the process of this illustration I realised I was expressing some deep traumas that I have not really addressed directly. When I look back at the body of my work, it is obvious where I have subconsciously explored these feelings. In deciding to make this piece with more focus, I found that it drained and took a lot out of me. I worked on it tirelessly until it all came into focus, and when it did, I felt a tidal wave of exhaustion but also relief.
I feel like the time is right to share these stories. They will provide context for this work.
My first crush was a pretty blonde girl. We were in first grade, at a primary school in Sydney. She taught me how to tie my shoes.
My second big crush was one of my teammates on my swim team. Tall and beautiful, an adolescent boys dream. We were in grade six, going to one of the nicer public schools in Male’ City. It was around then when my troubles began.
While I had this crush, I was also experimenting with a classmate. Another boy. We would try things together, but he would never kiss me. No, that would be too gay.
A few months into this, it came time for the annual school play. The teachers were so shit that I had to write and direct it myself. It was about a satirical news channel called Crazy Lunatic News. I even managed to sneak in some nonsense making fun of Maumoon, who was still ruling as a dictator at the time (with a sketch about going to the moon, real original right?).
While hanging out with the kids in that group we would chat about the dumb things that kids that age would talk about. When the topic of sex came up, I boldly offered the proposition that guys had it way better because we could f*** but also get f***ed.
You see for me, I had never really thought of as being straight was a thing. I thought people just liked who they liked.
My schoolmates obviously did not think the same. Soon rumours swirled that I was gay. Super gay. Just absolutely bent. All while I had this hopeless crush on this girl.
To add to this tragedy, another girl, who apparently I guess might have had a crush on me, started claiming that she was my girlfriend. In retrospect its clear that she was trying to protect me. But at the time it really pissed me off because I thought it would hurt my chances with the girl that I liked. So I did the totally rational and understanding thing of yelling at her in front of a bunch of people about how she should stop telling lies.
All of a sudden I understood all the homophobia that I had been growing up with. The big insult then, and still now, for a gay male is firihen kulhi (lit. male play - the popular slur for lesbians being anhen kulhi or female play). The walls of the school, the tables, the toilet walls, would be littered with scribbles saying FK this FK that.
I should mention that by this point I had already been getting shit all my life for my name, Hani. It sounds too much like honey. Harmless enough most places, but in the Maldives, Honey was the name of an infamous cross dressing person (they may also possibly be trans, I am not sure). Honey was constantly getting arrested for wearing dresses, which most Maldivians found to be the absolute height of comedy. They got so much entertainment from his ostracisation and suffering that the fallout fell onto me. Hani. The boy with the name that sounds like Honey.
All of a sudden I became labeled as FK. And that made me scared that maybe I really was gay. If I was gay, then I would be FK, and then people really wouldn’t leave me alone. And not only the people, but god too. God would make sure I didn’t escape even if I died.
So when high school started, I buried everything and went and hid deep in the closet. I would not really think about my sexuality beyond straight or perhaps a tiny bit bicurious for years to come.
Instead, during the early days of high school, I would lie in bed and choke myself, hoping to die. Luckily this is almost impossible to do to yourself.
When the 2004 tsunami hit the Maldives, I was in grade 9. Fearing that we would all go to hell, the extremist preachers stepped up their game and started what would be a very successful radicalisation campaign. Fearing that their children would get lost at sea, parents all over got their kids mobile phones. Phones we would use in class to share dirty photos and porn.
Somehow at least two homophobes got my number and immediately began to send me hateful messages non-stop. At this point I was deeply in denial so it was incredibly distressing. Who would I even talk to about this? If I told anyone then I would really be like Honey.
In the meantime I began to express my self hatred upon my own body in increasingly more violent ways. It is kind of a blur so I am not entirely sure when or how it started. I think it might have been even before the tsunami and the texts.
I would steal away matches and light little fires on the back of my hand. Onto this same spot I would pour candle wax, and sometimes just push the candle and matches inside. The skin eventually would break and form a gross wound. Smack dab in the middle of the back of my right hand. Hardly a hidden spot. Yet nobody really noticed anything.
In a truly bizarre cry for help I would hide the shape made by the wound in the design of a birthday card I made to invite my schoolmates.
It was also around this time that I discovered that sniffing glue made you high. I am pretty sure I tried it immediately after hearing some PSA about the dangers of it. This led to experiments with various cough syrups, most of which had extremely not fun chemicals in them like DXM and Diphenhydramine. I also learned how to crush pills and extract codeine. None of it really helped. There is more beyond these anecdotes that I will share when the time is right.
In a way this piece is the mirror to my previous self portrait “My Hijab (In Bloom)”. If that work represents me in my current state, this one represents how I was.
Being torn apart and manipulated. Forced to hide my true self. Yet through the wounds you can see flowers blooming. Flowers that would protect me, guard me, nourish me. They represent my queer family who have always been there for me, even when I did not know it.
It is 2022, and the Maldives still does not recognise LGBTQIA+ people, and neither does it recognise freedom of conscience, the right to believe what you want to believe. Queer atheists and people from other religions are just as subjugated as queer Muslims. Even being an ally is dangerous.
In essence, the Maldives does not recognise the right of its citizens to have their own identity. There is much talk of mental health initiatives, but what of the mental health of people being bullied and ostracised by an entire nation for who they are? You really expect some kid to be able to tell a therapist or whatever their deep fears and traumas are, when they do not even have the comfort of asking the police for help? Calling the police is not something queer or non-Muslim Maldivians do. There is much to say about this but I will leave that there.
I once hid my scars, but the time for that is now long past. I feel like I have awoken from a long sleep.
31 Dhivehi Haikus for the month of August
In August during lockdown, I wrote a haiku in Dhivehi each day. It started off with simple Thaana text on black background, and slowly evolved to incorporate my photographs. It is nice to write haikus in Dhivehi as the structure lends itself nicely to counting the syllables.
The poems themselves seemed to take on a very self reflective nature, with common themes being the ocean, Maldivian life, and life in Male’ City.
I have included english translations for each of them. However do note that sometimes the meaning and syllable structure is lost somewhat in translation.
Originally posted on my instagram.
In August during lockdown, I wrote a haiku in Dhivehi (the Maldivian language) each day. It started off with simple Thaana text on black background, and slowly evolved to incorporate my photographs. It is nice to write haikus in Dhivehi as the structure lends itself nicely to counting the syllables.
The poems themselves seemed to take on a very self reflective nature, with common themes being the ocean, Maldivian life, and life in Male’ City.
I have included english translations for each of them. However do note that sometimes the meaning and syllable structure is lost somewhat in translation.
Originally posted on my instagram.
1st
Kalaayaa nulaa
Udun ohey tharithah
Bimuga jehey
Without you
The stars that cascade from the heavens
Crash into the earth
2nd
Kulagadha maa
Kalaa chischis kolleema
Hithi zuvaankan
Vivid flowers
Because you crushed
Bitter youth
3rd
Kandu omaan rey
Dhashu udhuhey mahéh
Huvafén gâs
Calm ocean night
A fish flying beneath
Dream tree
4th
ބޯއަޅާލާފަ
ރޫހު އެއްކޮށް ގުޅިފަ
މަޑިކިލަނބު
Boa alhaalaafa
Roohu éhkoh gulhifa
Madikilanbu
Lay your head
Souls link together
Milky Way (galaxy)
5th
ލޭބޯ ކަކުނި
ހަމަހިމޭން މަދިރި
ލޮލުގެ ނިޔާ
Leyboa kakuni
Hamahimeyn madhiri
Lolugé niyaa
Bloodsucking crab
Serene mosquito
A judgment of the eyes
6th
މޫތައް ދަށުގަ
ވަރުގަދަ ހިޔާލެއް
ދުނިޔެ ނިމުން
Moothah dhashuga
Varugadha hiyaaléh
Dhuniyé nimun
Beneath the roots
A powerful thought
The end of the world
7th
މާސިންގާ ކަނޑު
ތިމާ ބޮލަށް ވެއްޓުނަސް
ބިރަކާ ނުލާ
Maasingaa kandu
Thimaa bollah vettunas
Birakaa nulaa
Boundless ocean
Even if it were to fall on my head
Without fear
8th
This one is for @moyameehaa #findmoyameehaa
މޮޔަވީދޯދެން
ލޯބީގެ ދުޝްމަނުންތައް
ދިވެހި ރާއްޖެ
Moyaveedhoa dhen
Loabeegé dhushmanunthah
Dhivehi Raajjé
Guess we’ve gone mad
The enemies of love
Kingdom of the Islanders
Insta link
9th
މަގޭދަރިންތައް
ތިހާ ނުލަފާނަމަ
މުސީބާތެއްބާ
Magey dharinthah
Thihaa nulafaanama
Museebaathéhbaa
My children
If they were so cruel
A calamity(?)
10th
ހަނަފަސް އާބާދް
ހުވަފެންތައް ގެއްލިފަ
ފަނޑު ތަގްދީރު
Hanafas aabaadh
Huvafenthah gellifa
Fandu thagdheeru
An empty city
Lost dreams
Fortune faded
Insta link
11th
ވިހުރޭ ދިދަ
ދަށުގަ ހުސް ބަހަނާ
ގައުމީ ރޫހު
Vihurey dhidha
Dhashuga hus bahanaa
Gaumee roohu
Fluttering flag
Beneath, nothing but excuses
National spirit
12th
ހަމަހިމޭންކަން
ތިބާ ނޭވާލާ ހިނދު
ސުވަރުގޭގަ
Hamahimeynkan
Thibaa neyvaalaa hindhu
Suvarugeyga
Calm
As long as you’re breathing
In heaven
13th
ދުރު އުދަރެސް
ނާމާން ފަރުބަދަތައް
މުސްކުޅިވުން
Dhuru udhares
Naamaan farubadhathah
Muskulhivun
Distant horizon
Ominous mountains
Getting older
14th
ކަނޑު އަޑީގަ
ގާހަކައިގެ ސިއްރު
ވިއްސާރަދުނި
Kandu adeega
Gaahakaigé sirru
Vissaara dhuni
Under the sea
The giant clam’s secret
Rainbow
15th
އަނދިރި ޖައްވު
ދުރު ތަރިތަކެއްގެ
ހިޔަނި އެޅޭ
Andhiri javvu
Dhuru tharithakéh
Hiyani elhey
Dark space
Of distant stars
Shadows fall
16th
މާމެލާމެލި
ދަށުގަ ތާޖެއް
ނިކަގަސް ރާނީ
Maamelaameli
Dhashuga thaajjeh
Nikagas raanee
All the flowers
Beneath a crown
Banyan tree queen
Insta link
17th
ބިއްލޫރި ކަނޑު
ދުންތަރިތަކުގެ ލޭ
އިރު އޮށްސެނީ
Billoori kandu
Dhuntharithakugé ley
Iru ossennee
Glass ocean
Blood of comets
The sun is setting
Insta link
18th
ފިޔާތޮށި މާތައް
އަނދިރި އަނދިރި ރޭ
ވަގަށް ފޮޅިލާ
Fiyaathoshi maathah
Andhiri andhiri rey
Vaggah folhilaa
Pink flowers
On a dark night
Bloom coyly
19th
ހިތްހަމަޖެހޭ
ހަވީރުގެ ފިނިވައި
ހޫނު ސައިތައްޓެއް
Hihhamajehey
Haveerugé finivai
Hoonu saithahtteh
Contentment*
Cool evening breeze
A hot cup of tea
(*lit. Calm heart)
20th
ވަރުބަލިކަން
ގައިގަ ހަރުލައިފިއޭ
ފިނި އިހުސާސް
Varu balikan
Gaiga harulaifiey
Fini ihusaas
Exhaustion
Has taken over (my) body
Cold sensations
21st
ވިލުނޫ ހާރު
ރަން ރިހިވެލި ލިބާސް
ދިވެހިންގެ ލޭ
Vilunoo* haaru
Ran rihiveli libaas**
Dhivehingé*** ley
Turquoise necklace
Dress of gold and silver sands
The blood of islanders
*lit lagoon blue
**traditional Maldivian dress
***lit. Maldivian’s
Insta link
22nd
ފަތުރުވެރިން
އަޅުވެތިކަންމަތީ
ދަރިފަސްކޮޅު
Fathuruverin
Alhuvethikanmathee
Dharifaskolhu
Tourists
(Have) enslaved
Generations
23rd
ނުރައްކާތެރި
ބަސް ބަހުގެ މާނަތައް
ހަތިޔާރެކޭ
Nurakkaatheri
Bas bahugé maanathah
Hathiyaarekey
Dangerous
Intent of words
A weapon
Insta link
24th
ތޫނު ވިހަ ބޯ
މުއްސަނދި މުނާފިގުން
ނަންވާނީ މަދޯ
Thoonu vihaboa
Mussandhi munaafigun
Nanvaanee madhoa
Sip on sharp poison
Opulent hypocrites
Guess I’ll take the blame
25th
ބޯވަ ޖަންޖަލި
މުރަކަ މަހާނަގާ
ދުނިޔެ މަރާ
Boava jangali
Muraka mahaanagaa
Dhuniye maraa
Octopus garden
Coral tombstone
World killer
26th
މަށާ މިޔަރު
މާސިންގާ ކަނޑު ތެރޭ
މޫދުގެ ދަރިން
Mashaa miyaru
Maasingaa kandu therey
Moodhugé dharin
The shark and I
Within a vast ocean
Children of the sea
27th
އުޑު ބިންދާލާ
ގޮނގުރީޓު ފުރޭތަ
ނޭވާ ނުލެވޭ
Udu bindhaalaa
Gongureetu fureytha
Neyvaa nulevey
Break the sky
Concrete demon
Can’t breath
28th
ދުނިޔެ މަތީ
ބަލާބޮޑު މީހުންވެސް
ލޯބި ބޭނުންވޭ
Dhuniyé mathee
Balaabodu* meehunvés
Loabi beynunvey
In this world
Even troublesome people
Need love
29th
މަގޭ ހިޔަނި
ރަން ކުލައިގެ އަލިފާންް
ކަނު އަނދިރި
Magey hiyani
Ran kulaigé alifaan
Kanu andhiri
My shadow
Fires of gold
Pitch black
30th
ފޮރުވިފައިވާ
ކަނޑުގެ ހަޒާނާތައް
ވެލާގެ ސިއްރު
Foruvifaivaa
Kandugé hazaanaathah
Velaagé sirru
Hidden
Treasures of the ocean
The turtle’s secret
31st
ޒަމާނީ ފުލޯކް
ދިރުމެއްނެތް މޫނުތައް
ރޫހު މަރާލާ
Zamaanee fuloak
Dhirumehnei moonuthah
Roohu maraalaa
Modern forgeries
Lifeless faces
Kill the spirit
The Laadheenee Among Us
Chapter 03 of my work in progress book "Sinking Streets".
Chapter 01 - The Male’ City Swimming Track
Chapter 02 - Doorways to the Sea
Eid celebrations. Lhaviyani Atoll Kurendhoo, Maldives. Nikon D70s. (2007)
Chapter 03 of my work in progress book "Sinking Streets".
Chapter 01 - The Male’ City Swimming Track
Chapter 02 - Doorways to the Sea
A short note on the word “laadheenee”.
Literal meaning: Not (laa) Religious (dheenee)
Not really Dhivehi in origin. Nobody uses “laa” to mean no in Dhivehi. It is an arab loan word.
Used to call someone irreligious in some way. Also directed at LGBTQI people whether or not they’re religious. Many Muslim LGBTQI people are also called laadheenee simply for being themselves.
Could be used to call someone a secularist, or a hypocrite (munafiq) or an apostate (murtad), or a blasphemer. I think the actual Dhivehi word for secular is illmaanee.
The word has even been spray painted on the walls of houses of people who have been suspected to be “laadheenee”. This may have been more related to its political usage as a slur against opposing parties rather than its usage against Maldivian minorities. However, the slur is ultimately accusing these political parties of belonging to or supporting non-Muslims or LGBTQI people. To date there isn’t a single political party that has even acknowledged the existence of Maldivian minorities other than as a boogeyman or scapegoat.
A dog whistle for “kafir” (infidel). Ultimately always means this (if not used ironically by progressive people).
The goal of this word is to stereotype and group Maldivian non-Muslims and LGBTI people as a homogenous entity that is actively working against “Islam” and the very fabric of the nation itself. It is much easier to ascribe conspiracy theories to “laadheenee” meehun (people) this way. This is similar to the way white supremacists say things like “the jews” or “the blacks”. The laadheenee meehun are apparently out to destroy the Maldives, it’s culture, it’s heritage, and it’s national unity. This is despite laadheenee meehun being regular Dhivehin just like everybody else.
Fishermen from Baa Atoll Kudarikilu. Nikon D70s. (2009)
The wind is rushing through your hair, extra salty with the mist generated by the dhoni as it gently falls on the waves ahead.
One of you is sick, throwing up. Why are we going fishing? Your vomit leaves an orange trail on the cobalt blue waters behind us.
As we anchor at the edge of a reef, the fires in the sky fizzles into the waves. Soon the moon rises and one of you comments on how your grandfather always said that’s a good omen for fishing. We remember we say, you tell us all the time.
As the moon grows brighter, the pile of fish in the center of the dhoni grows ever higher. Rai mas, filolhu, handhi, faana, and even a few tholhi. One of you mention how great mamma’s havaadhu is going to taste.
The hold of a dhoni full of reef fish. Baa Atoll. Nikon D70s. (2009)
We return to the island. A fire is lit. The fish are gutted and cleaned. The havaadhu is liberally applied into the slits cut into the side of the fish. Save me the eyes! One of you says excitedly.
The aroma of the fish fills the air. Comforting smells of roasting cumin, turmeric, garlic, onions cut with the sharp tang of scotch bonnet chilies mixed with lime ignites a hunger in your belly. The smoke spirals up with the sparks towards the moonlight. The day feels long. Is it done yet?
Lhaviyani Hinnavaru, Maldives. Nikon D7100. (2007)
We eat all of the fish. Nothing is wasted. You say the one you caught tastes the best. You like the oily taste of charred rai’ mas skin better than the dull taste of the bony tholhi you caught. I caught the tholhi! The youngest cousin exclaims angrily. Everyone laughs and we share the last of the fish as we reminisce about past trips.
Baa Atoll Eydhafushi, Maldives. Nikon D3100. (2013)
Remember the time you cut your foot as you ran out onto the beach? Remember the time we all played lava baazee on the dhoni when we went to that distant atoll? Remember the time the spicy eid chicken gave you a stomach ache? Remember the time you thought your shirt was ruined because of a surprise water fight? Remember how we sat at the water’s edge staring at the stars?
The octopus hunters. Baa Atoll Eydhafushi, Maldives. Nikon D3100 (2013).
What about the trip where we couldn’t catch enough fish, so we went walking on the reef at low tide looking for snails? You were grossed out but found them delicious. Or when your uncle nearly had a heart attack because of the sound of a falling coconut? You laughed and said maybe he should start wearing a helmet. Remember how you hugged me the day the tsunami hit? You held me close and told me everything would be okay.
Remember when the protests happened and we all felt so scared? When the news said everything was alright, but we could hear the shouts and screams? When we could see the smoke but couldn’t see the fire?
Remember when we celebrated your freedom? Your right to vote? Your right to political representation? You were drunk that night. But it was alright because Friday was coming soon.
Remember when you told me to stop saying we? As if all at once I’m banished from our memories. As if it was a stranger who laughed at your jokes. As if it was a stranger who shared your joy, your love, and your sorrow?
Lhaviyani Atoll Kurendhoo, Maldives. Nikon D70s (2007)
Remember when you decided I was one of them? The vile, the deceitful, the enemy? Remember when you made me doubt my memories? My life? My existence? Was it not with you whom I shared my joy, my love, my sorrow?
And now, in my time of greatest misery, you twist the knife and pretend the blood that spills onto your hands isn’t that of your brother. Your sister. Your mother. Your father. Your aunts, your uncles, your cousins. Your friends and your lovers.
The blood pools around your ankles. But you feel nothing. You feel no guilt. For you have forgotten me. Forgotten what it means to be human. So your heart grows cold, while mine grows weary.
Doorways to the Sea
Chapter 02 of my work in progress book "Sinking Streets".
Our lives are framed by doorways. These portals that open onto the street. In Male’ City, there is no such thing as a front yard. There are more cemeteries than parks – a good thing as a lot of the trees that have not been felled exist within their walls. A lot can happen in these doorways. Lovers flirt, children play, the old watch a rapidly changing world pass them by. If you are lucky the doorway will open to a path instead of straight inside your home.
Machangoalhi
Vivitar Ultrawide & Slim with Kodak BW400 CN
(2008)
Chapter 02 of my work in progress book "Sinking Streets".
Chapter 01 - The Male’ City Swimming Track
Chapter 02 - Doorways to the Sea
Chapter 03 - The Laadheenee Among Us
Our lives are framed by doorways. These portals that open onto the street. In Male’ City, there is no such thing as a front yard. There are more cemeteries than parks – a good thing as a lot of the trees that have not been felled exist within their walls. A lot can happen in these doorways. Lovers flirt, children play, the old watch a rapidly changing world pass them by. If you are lucky the doorway will open to a path instead of straight inside your home.
Machangoalhi
Vivitar Ultrawide & Slim with expired 35mm film.
(2008)
I was one of the lucky ones.
Machangoalhi
Sony Erickson W810i
(2008)
So lucky that I even had a room to call my own. This is the view from its window. Just enough sky to sometimes see the moon.
Machangoalhi
Nikon D70s
(2007)
It is easy to feel trapped when you’re in Male’ City. Encircled by the ocean, there is no escape. There is no country side to escape to. Many people I’ve spoken to don’t seem to understand just how small Male’ City is. Five square kilometers is not much room. Yet more than half of the population of the Maldives live here.
Galolhu
Nikon D70s
(2008)
You’re trapped on this tiny island with nowhere to go. You’d tell someone, anyone, how you feel. But you can’t. Not when the national economy is fueled by gossip.
Maafannu.
Nikon D70s.
(2007)
You learn to play with the concrete. It smells familiar. It smells comfortable.
Machangoalhi ward
Nikon D70s
(2008)
You get used to overloaded lorries speeding past. You learn to hear them through the growl of the city. Just as they’re about to hit you, you step to the side, off onto that little ledge that is apparently the pavement. Guess you’ll live long enough to see what comes next.
Machangoalhi
Vivitar Ultrawide & Slim with expired and cross processed Kodak Elite Chrome 100
(2008)
I wonder what the older generations must think of the concrete monstrosity that Male’ has become. My father says that when they used to play football, they played without shoes on the unpaved streets. This apparently made their feet tough like leather.
Machangoalhi
Vivitar Ultrawide & Slim with Kodak BW400 CN
(2008)
People seem happier when it rains. I don’t know what it is. Perhaps I am imagining it. But to me, they have always seemed happier. Maybe because it provides a welcome escape from the heat. Maybe it is the hypnotic sound of rain hitting hundreds upon hundreds of tin roofs. Maybe it is how satisfyingly huge the droplets are; for when it rains, it pours.
Galolhu
Vivitar Ultrawide & Slim with Kodak BW400 CN
(2008)
When I was a child the streets weren’t paved and there were no gutters. This meant that the whole island would flood. At night we would hear frogs croaking. I cannot remember the last time I heard a frog in Male’. With the ground covered in bricks they have nowhere left to go. Despite the gutters, the roads still flood, and paradoxically the floods seem to be even dirtier than before. All sorts of grime are lifted out as many people use the gutter as a handy spot to dump their trash. Cigarette butts, supari packets, used condoms, and all manner of debris float around, mixed with the scarlet spit of people who chew various betel nut preparations.
Machangoalhi
Nikon D70s.
(2007)
The rich escape to their rooftops. Yet even they are not immune to the allures of gravity.
Machangoalhi
Nikon D70s
(2007)
From the tops of these towers you can survey your domain. You can even see a bit of the horizon. But that is always a temporary thing. New buildings are constantly being built higher and higher. This photograph was taken in 2007. The change since then has been immeasurable. Look at all the construction sites and let your mind fill in the gaps.
Maafannu
Nikon D70s.
(2007)
This seems like a good moment to mention that the Maldives has not been built by Maldivians. Instead, it has been built by migrant workers, mostly from other South Asian countries such as Bangladesh. For this they get no thanks and their slave like working conditions are the least of any Maldivians worries. For these migrants’ escape is sometimes literally impossible, as it is common practice for their “employers” to confiscate their passports. To get it back they must rid themselves of the “debt” they have incurred upon arrival in this supposed paradise.
Raalhugandu
Henveiru
Pentax Optio M30
(2008)
You’re trapped on this tiny island with nowhere to go. You run to the edge and you’re greeted by the seawall that surrounds the island. Not a beach. Just more concrete. But people don’t go to the edge to see the wall. They go to see the horizon.
Raalhugandu.
Henveiru
Pentax Optio M30.
(2008)
When you’re in the thick of it the horizon is a rare sight. The afternoons and early evenings are full of people making their rounds around the island. In Dhivehi we call it “buru jehun”. Couples on motorbikes are a common sight. No surprise since driving aimlessly around Male’ is one of the first romantic activities people engage in. It’s much harder for families to spy on a moving target.
Galolhu
Nikon D70s.
(2008)
People take a lot of pride in their motorbikes. Many dream of the day they will buy one for themselves, and many go into debt in the process of chasing that dream. Do you find it strange that the ultimate desire of a people of a nation that consists of far more ocean than land is to have more motor vehicles? I certainly do. Although I understand why. I’ve done my fair share of aimless driving. Who needs a boat when you’ve got a motorbike you’ll never push over third gear?
Raalhugandu.
Henveiru
Vivitar Ultrawide & Slim with Kodak BW400 CN
(2008)
Even if you had a boat, where would you keep it? Space in the harbor is limited and the fees aren’t cheap. So people make do with the horizon. One of the best places to experience it used to be Raalhugandu.
The seawall blends into the ocean.
Raalhugandu.
Henveiru
Vivitar Ultrawide & Slim with Kodak BW400 CN
(2008)
Here you could see far into the distance. Being on the side of Male’ away from Thilafushi, the air is always fresh. The sound of waves constantly crashing against the miniscule stretch of “beach” provides enough white noise to drown the howling of the city.
Raalhugandu
Henveiru
Nikon D70s
(2007)
Local surfers and boarders make their way to the short strip of reef where the waves break, floating over armies of spiky sea urchins.
Raalhugandu.
Henveiru
Canon G10
(2008)
Once you’re past their treacherous spines you are met with the full force of crashing waves. You must duck underneath to get past them. If you go deep enough you can slip past with ease. Time it wrong and you end up in the “washing machine”. Thrown about by the waves, short of breath, blood rushing into my head, sometimes I’ve wondered whether I should have just let go. Let the ocean carry me out and decide my fate. Fortunately for me I’m very good at holding my breath, so I’ve always managed to surface. Always managed to survive to see what comes next.
Local legends Fuku and Kuda Ayya.
Raalhugandu
Henveiru
Canon G10
(2009)
Here, past the urchins, corals, and crushing waves, surfers and body boarders perfect their craft in the early mornings and afternoons. Many have persevered through incredible odds and have gone on to win international competitions. I could not be prouder.
Raalhugandu.
Henveiru
Nikon FM2 with Kodak Tri-X 400
(2009)
At the hut by the side of Raalhugandu they stack their boards and enjoy the ocean breeze. While society called them useless they carved out their own space and made the most of it.
Raalhugandu
Henveiru
Canon A630
(2008)
On sunny days it can be glorious. The air is crisp. The sky is blue. Carried by the waves, the rays of the sun warm your heart, body, and soul.
Raalhugandu.
Henveiru
Canon G10
(2009)
Even here the specter of the city is inescapable. But as the waves roll in, they push up high, high above the buildings. There amongst the waves at the end of the reef you feel safer than you ever did in that labyrinth. You’re so far away that the din of the city becomes a muffled hum.
Raalhugandu.
Henveiru
Canon G10
(2009)
As the wave rolls on down the city rises, looming over you once again.
So, you’re trapped on this tiny island with nowhere to go.
Piracy and me - Video games
I owe a lot to the pirates of Asia. Most of the media I consumed up to the point I was a young adult was pirated. Pirated VHS tapes, pirated games, pirated music. Even the shows on the state propaganda channel were pirated. Hell, even the satellite feeds we got were pirated up until the mid 2000s. People pointed their dish antennas towards the heavens and caught the pieces of the free world that were reflected back.
Space Scape
Pixaki
(2016)
I owe a lot to the pirates of Asia. Most of the media I consumed up to the point I was a young adult was pirated. Pirated VHS tapes, pirated games, pirated music. Even the shows on the state propaganda channel were pirated. Hell, even the satellite feeds we got were pirated up until the mid 2000s. People pointed their dish antennas towards the heavens and caught the pieces of the free world that were reflected back.
I don't recall a single notable place in Male’ that sold originals other than a music store called BayWatch. The disks were so prohibitively expensive that it is a wonder they stayed in business at all. The only albums I’ve ever bought from there were the ones I got from their first closing down sale. I remember Sepultura and Anthrax. Metal to dull my teenage angst. Listening to high quality CD audio was a refreshing change from the shitty mp3s we were used to. A lot of the pirated CDs didn't sound much better than these tiny digital files. Nobody really had enough money to afford the real thing on a regular basis.
The same was true for video games. So much so that the availability of pirated media seemed to directly influence which consoles we used. As such the most popular consoles from my childhood were the first two PlayStation systems. The island was dotted with shops that sold PlayStation games for dirt cheap. Buy two get three free. They’d have walls that were covered floor to ceiling with CDs in crinkly plastic covers. It was always PlayStation games at these little stores. Never anything else.
PlayStation mania hit the Maldives relatively late. I was shocked to find out that the console was a product of the early to mid-nineties. The only people that kept up with the West were the well-travelled elites. I’ve only ever seen the competing GameCube and Xbox systems from within their spacious homes. The games for those systems weren’t as easy to pirate back then. This meant that the people who owned those systems had to have the means to buy original discs from abroad. The older N64 might as well have never existed.
What kept PCs from the top spot was that it was both cheaper and easier to get your hands on a PlayStation. For a PlayStation to work all you needed was a CRT TV to plug it into, and everyone seemed to have had one of those. How else would you get your daily dose of propaganda? The first year I had a PlayStation I played entirely in black and white, as the old National set we had didn’t support the correct colour system. I don’t remember minding much. I think it added to the ambiance of the one Medal of Honour game that I had.
As most of the PlayStation catalogue had already been released by that point, the way we experienced these games was all at once. We did not have to wait for a sequel. We never got to appreciate the steady increase in quality. We’d finish them one after the other. We also missed out on manuals and all the little extras one gets for not being a dirty pirate.
Take the case of my quest to play Metal Gear Solid. I became obsessed with it after watching a cousin play through the entire thing. Back then the houses of relatives was the closest thing we had to Twitch. Many a Ramadan was spent watching older cousins trying to suffer through the Resident Evils. Nemesis from R3 used to haunt my dreams. Years later when I got my own PlayStation, the much-requested MGS disc that game with it turned out to be the VR Missions spin off. A fun game but hardly the story driven adventure I had gawked at from my cousin’s couch. I would eventually borrow it from a wealthier friend who had already played its PS2 sequel to death.
A few hours in it has a mechanic where you had to check the back of the CD case for a codec number. It was nowhere to be found on the pirated copy. Believe me, I analysed the cover for a good half hour. Maybe it would appear if I looked at it upside down? Maybe they meant the front cover? Perhaps they used invisible ink? Spies used that, right? Was I ever going to get to play this damn game? Thankfully my friend still remembered it. For that, and letting me borrow it in the first place, I am eternally grateful. Through such goodwill is how most of us got our hands on harder to find titles. It would take a while for pirated PS2 discs to become as widespread because its games, which came on DVDs, were more complicated and expensive to pirate compared to CDs.
The shops that sold PC games were special in that they would make discs to order. You’d pick out a title from their alphabetised display shelf, and they’d burn the disc for you on the spot. They’d even help you out if you had trouble cracking it. All games and software were priced the same, with price increasing only with the number of discs. Once our family computer got a CD burner, I realised that nothing was stopping me from doing the same.
Thus began my short lived yet extremely profitable venture of selling pirated discs to my secondary school mates. I’d have an excel printout that I’d bring to class. In it was a list of all the PC games I had available. I would also borrow as many games as I could, promising to bring the discs back the next day. The more games I borrowed, the larger the list became. The more discs I burned, the better I became at it. Soon I even knew how to duplicate PlayStation games (using some specialised software that I had pirated of course). All you needed to do to make them work (if you didn’t have a mod-chip) was to start the system with an original disc, and then switch it out for the burned copy at just the right moment.
At first I was buying single CDs at the neighbourhood bookshop, but soon I was able to afford a whole spindle. Before long, kids from other classes were visiting me during lunch break to put in orders. GTA 3 and Vice City were two of my best sellers. The Sims series, with its multitude of expansion packs was quite a hit as well. Maxis / EA were really onto something there.
My dreams of riches came crashing down when my mother caught on and began wondering why I suddenly had so much disposable income. Ultimately it came down to the hard truth that getting caught by the school itself could mean expulsion. So I stopped selling, opting instead to just continue growing my own collection. Gotta burn something right. Piracy wasn't going to stay “legal” forever.
It was an interesting taste of the entrepreneurial spirit that brought life to our media starved souls. At the time I certainly didn't care much for the rights of companies that probably weren't even aware of our existence, let alone be capable of pointing us out on a map. Even now, would be capitalists should take note; the free market waits for no one.
Fear of Humanity
There is not a moment where I am truly at ease. An innocent knock on the door in the middle of the day can create a crippling sense of dread. Is it just the postman? Or is it death come knocking? At night, it is even worse. What darkness lies at the end of the dim hall when I wake to relieve myself when all else is quiet?
There is not a moment where I am truly at ease. An innocent knock on the door in the middle of the day can create a crippling sense of dread. Is it just the postman? Or is it death come knocking? At night, it is even worse. What darkness lies at the end of the dim hall when I wake to relieve myself when all else is quiet?
You begin to wonder how it would feel. To have your flesh sliced open by a cold steel blade. To have your brethren mercilessly slash at your mortal coil until you lay dead in a pool of your own blood and sinew. Would it hurt? Who would find me first? Would it be the ones who are dearest to me? I think that would be the worst thing. To have your life stolen from you so that instead of joy, you leave behind terror; a warning.
What would people say of it? No doubt the first thing that would escape the lips of most Maldivians I know are questions about what I had said. How had I blasphemed. Why had I deserved it.
Am I perhaps being too harsh on Maldivians? I once brought up the subject of my impending demise to a close friend, a Muslim who isn’t from the Maldives. If Allah willed me to survive, the blade would miss he reasoned. And if I were to die, perhaps I would be cleansed of the sin of being an apostate. He even went so far as to suggest that maybe my would be killers are actually looking out for me, ensuring with my murder at their hands that I too would have a worthy place in heaven. All of this he said with a straight face. I became angry that day, but it was pointless. Some people will never understand what it is like to live in such fear and I must accept that.
It all begins to feel a little bit like a self fulfilling prophecy. When I was in high school I wrote and directed an absurdist stage play where I starred as the central character - an ice cream salesman with more than a passing resemblance to Hitler. The plot involved a man, a school teacher, with blue skin that hated difference. During the course of the play I would further corrupt this hypocrite, and together we would slowly murder the rest of the cast - a collection of odd people and creatures - with my poisoned explosive ice cream. At the end of the play, I meet my demise at the hands of the police who would shoot me to bits.
Ironically, it was a complete lack of trust of the Maldivian police that led me to seek the protection of another country; a country where my very existence would not be illegal. When someone from a Maldivian minority asks the police for help, they can always be sure that they will become the criminal; rather than the ones that seek to harm them. The cowardly attempt to murder Hilath Rasheed, and the brutal killing of Yameen Rasheed, and the police response to both incidents are proof of this fact. Both reported that their lives were in danger. Neither were taken seriously by those with the power to keep them safe. To make matters worse, it is no comfort that the fate of Ahmed Rilwan is still unknown.
Despite the protection of a sane police force and a government that respects my right to exist, the fear does not subside. The tentacles of radicalism grip the world in a chokehold. Some places are safer, yet nowhere is safe from those that suffer from that terrible affliction - a fear of humanity. A fear of thinking. A fear of living. A fear of love. A fear of sex. A fear of art. A fear of music. A fear of dancing. A fear of our own naked bodies. A fear of all those attributes that make us human.
It is past midnight. The crunch of footsteps outside breaks an uneasy silence. My senses heighten. Are they just walking down the road? Or are they coming up the path? I strain my ears. They’re coming up the path! It’s just my housemate, I tell myself, trying to calm myself down. But how could I know for sure? A sound at the front door. My heart pounds in my chest. A key turns a lock and the footsteps are now in the hallway. It must be my housemate. Only they have the keys. But how could I know for sure? Is this it? Are they inside the house? I look at my bedroom door. Will it suddenly burst open? The door is old and not very strong. What would I use to defend myself? Should I wake up my partner, who lies asleep next to me, blissfully unaware? A familiar cough breaks the silence. It is my housemate. Tonight, like all those other nights, I was safe all along.
But how could I know for sure? Paranoia might seem like a useless emotion, but what if you have a reason to be paranoid?What if my paranoia is the only thing that will ultimately keep me alive? I’d rather live in dread than leave behind a mangled corpse; spreading the terror of another mans agenda from beyond the grave. So I double check the locks at night. I stay awake until I can tire myself to sleep. I seek the demons in the shadows. I live with my fear of humanity, lest my humanity leave me.
Ahannakee dhivésséh (I am an Islander)
Ahannakee dhivésséh.
Kalhu meehhéh noon. Dhon meehhéh noon.
Mushi meehhéh noon.Dhivésséh.
Ahannakee dhivésséh.
Muslimméh noon. Kaafarréh noon.
Munafiqéh noon. Dhivésséh.
Aharengé naaru thakugé therey vindhu
jahanee maa singaa kandugé lonu.
Boa buri koffa génbiyas,
kandu gé andhiri gandu theré ah féhthiyas,
aharénn hithugé adeega vaanee amaankan.
Magey suvaru geygai neyvaalaakkah nujehé.
Magey rattéhinnakee bimu ga hingaa bodaa boa haru soofi éh noon.
Ahannakee dhivésséh.
Aharengé sikundi akee muraka bageechaa éh.
Dhanvaru hanguraama koh ley ohoruvaa kula gadha bimméh.
Miyaru maskaa hiyani therey boava filaa jungayyéh.
Hibaru kalhi alhaa kalhu thelu gé therey roa koffa inna faanooz éh.
Ahannakee dhivésséh.
Ahannakee farubadha éh noon.
Hanafas saharaa évvéss noon.
Ahannakee dhivésséh.
Mathanuvaa irugé avee gé dhashuga andhaa rashakkah ufan véfaivaa gadhafadha janavaarréh.
With English Translation:
Ahannakee dhivésséh.
[I am an islander]
Kalhu meehhéh noon. Dhon meehhéh noon.
Mushi meehhéh noon.Dhivésséh.
[Not a black person. Not a fair (white) person.
Not a brown person. An islander]
Ahannakee dhivésséh.
[I am an islander]
Muslimméh noon. Kaafarréh noon.
Munafiqéh noon. Dhivésséh.
[Not a Muslim. Not an infidel.
Not a hypocrite. An islander]
Aharengé naaru thakugé therey vindhu
jahanee maa singaa kandugé lonu.
[The salt of the vast ocean
pulses through my veins.]
Boa buri koffa génbiyas,
kandu gé andhiri gandu theré ah féhthiyas,
aharénn hithugé adeega vaanee amaankan.
[Even if you behead and drown me,
even if you sink me down into the darkness of the sea,
at the bottom of my heart is serenity.]
Magey suvaru geygai neyvaalaakkah nujehé.
Magey rattéhinnakee bimu ga hingaa bodaa boa haru soofi éh noon.
[My paradise does not require breath.
My friends are not the arrogant and stubborn insects
that walk this earth.]
Ahannakee dhivésséh.
[I am an islander]
Aharengé sikundi akee muraka bageechaa éh.
Dhanvaru hanguraama koh ley ohoruvaa kula gadha bimméh.
[My mind is a coral garden.
A colourful land where wars are fought
and blood is spilt in the dark of the night.]
Miyaru maskaa hiyani therey boava filaa jungayyéh.
Hibaru kalhi alhaa kalhu thelu gé therey roa koffa inna faanooz éh.
[Where octopus hide amongst the shadow of a feasting shark.
A lantern that burns within the black oil from where the swordfish stares.]
Ahannakee dhivésséh.
[I am an islander]
Ahannakee farubadha éh noon.
Hanafas saharaa évvéss noon.
[I am not a mountain.
Neither am I a barren desert.]
Ahannakee dhivésséh.
[I am an islander]
Mathanuvaa irugé avee gé dhashuga andhaa rashakkah ufan véfaivaa gadhafadha janavaarréh.
[A mighty animal, born to an island that burns under the unrelenting sun.]
The Male' City Swimming Track
Chapter 01 of my work in progress book "Sinking Streets".
Chapter 02 - Doorways to the Sea
Chapter 03 - The Laadheenee Among Us
I am floating on my back with my eyes closed. The sun is beating down on my face from above. The rumbling monster of the city is silenced and for a moment I forget about the stress that brought me here. The fresh morning air is tainted with the smell of diesel. I exhale and sink further down under the water’s surface.
Expired Disposable Underwater Tropicolor 35mm film camera
(2007)
Chapter 01 of my work in progress book "Sinking Streets".
Chapter 02 - Doorways to the Sea
Chapter 03 - The Laadheenee Among Us
I am floating on my back with my eyes closed. The sun is beating down on my face from above. The rumbling monster of the city is silenced and for a moment I forget about the stress that brought me here. The fresh morning air is tainted with the smell of diesel. I exhale and sink further down under the water’s surface.
Canon PowerShot G10
(2009)
The smell disappears. The water feels cold on my face and I feel goosebumps rise along my arms. My heartbeat steadily quickens as my body craves oxygen. I rise from the illusion and the endless noise of the city once again swarms my consciousness.
“Pretty cold today huh,” I remark to my friend while feeling the bumps along my arm. She’s sitting in waist deep water on the shallow side towards the tripod rocks.
Pentax Optio M30
2008)
“I bet you’re gonna miss this once you’re gone,” she said laughing.
She was right. I haven’t been out for a proper swim ever since I’d moved to Tasmania. My heart aches for the ocean. It is so close, yet it is so cold and unforgiving that its existence might as well be a mirage. My brief forays have been anything but enjoyable. A shivering overtakes the body and you feel your core begin to tighten up. It becomes difficult to breath and an icy panic begins to set in. Things seem different for those that learnt how to swim here. I see them dive effortlessly off their private yachts from where they swim sometimes great distances to the shore. Perhaps one day I will get used to it as well.
When I tell people that I am Maldivian their first reaction is one of barely concealed envy. “Wow! What a beautiful place! You must be so lucky!”. I am quick to correct them that no, I am not from the Maldives as much as I am from Male’ City.
Male' City from above.
Image via Google Earth.
© 2016 Digital Globe
Male’ City is a very different place from the rest of the Maldives. It has no natural beaches, and when I was very young the Track was the only place that people went swimming regularly. I, like many other residents of Male’ city, learnt how to swim there. “Track ah’ hingaa dhaan! (let’s go to the Track!)”, is a phrase that is familiar to young and old alike.
Canon PowerShot G10
(2009)
The Male' City Swimming Track.
Nikon D70s
(2009)
Canon PowerShot G10
(2009)
By the time that I was a teenager the government had created what they called the “Artificial Beach” on the East side of the island, but the fact that it was crowded, incredibly shallow and usually smelled even worse than the Track made it a less popular option. You could also of course try your luck in the Raalhugandu area, but the chaotic surf makes this unpleasant, and the shallower side is far too shallow with too many rocks to actually go swimming.
The Artificial Beach at low tide.
Henveiru ward
Nikon D70s
(2007)
Girl stares at her own reflection at the Artifical Beach.
Henveiru ward
Nikon D70s with 50mm f/1.8 AF-D
(2008)
Artificial Beach and Raalhugandu from the air.
Image via Google Earth.
© 2016 Digital Globe
Young woman meditates while sitting on a rock at the shallower side of Raalhugandu.
Raalhugandu
Henveiru ward
Pentax Optio M30
(2008)
The current Yameen administration has made a second artificial beach on the West side of the island that seems larger and a lot nicer, but I cannot speak about it as I have not been back to the Maldives since its creation a few years ago. All the photographs included in this essay are thus taken between 2006 and 2009. It was a time before GoPros and other action cams had become mainstream. Most of the photographs were therefore taken by using compact cameras in waterproof plastic cases and then later a hard case once I had purchased myself a Canon G10 in mid-2009. There are also a few photographs that were taken using an expired disposable underwater camera from Tropicolour.
Expired Disposable Underwater Tropicolor 35mm film camera
(2007)
The area you could swim in used to be much longer and when I was a child the boats were limited to the very edge. As a result the water used to be a lot clearer and less polluted. This also meant that the Track was a lot more accessible to the public and thus less crowded.
The area of the track you could swim in used to extend from the harbour on the lower left to a bit beyond where it ends on the far right.
Image via Google Earth.
© 2016 Digital Globe
Close up of current track area with swimming buoys visible in the middle.
Image via Google Earth.
© 2016 Digital Globe
The barrier which now separates the track from the rest of the harbour.
Nikon D70s
(2007)
The track side on the left of the barrier.
The harbour side on the right of the barrier.
One of my earliest memories is going swimming there with my Father and some cousins. I was a child and barely knew how to swim so I clung to his back as he swam across the divide. Two thirds of the way there he spotted an abandoned suitcase on the bottom. He tells me to wait as he dives down below. I nervously tread water and open my eyes underwater to watch his descent. He glides down and picks it up off the bottom. A cloud of dust surrounds him. He resurfaces and shakes his head. I grab onto his shoulders and we continue our journey across to the tripod rocks. It is my first memory of swimming by myself.
Canon PowerShot G10
(2009)
Along the island facing side there used to be moored many barges, or “bandu” (literally: stomach or belly). Off these rusting Goliath's young people used to ride their bikes straight into the water. Sometimes they’d do a flourish in the air, sometimes they’d just tumble in, but they all remembered to kick the bikes away lest it hit them on the way down.
With great effort they would then pull up the sunken bikes so that they and their friends can have another go. Too young to have my own bike and too shy to talk to them, I used to just watch in awe. “One day I’m going to ride my bike off a bandu!” I’d think to myself, fantasising about all the cool aerial manoeuvres I’d pull off.
Canon PowerShot G10
(2009)
Canon PowerShot G10
(2009)
Back then instead of the swimming practises being restricted to the floating constructions in the middle of the track, they used to be conducted perpendicular to the sea wall. Our laps would almost always consist of swimming from the road side to the tripod rocks and back. “Do 20 laps!”, our instructor would say, seemingly oblivious to the fact that a lack of proper markings meant that each consecutive lap would be shorter from the far side.
Despite it still being cleaner than what it is like now, it was still far from the pristine waters depicted in tourist propaganda. Everyone would always have some itch or rash that they were suffering from; probably in no small part due to a mysterious blue pipe that was constantly pumping out a warm toxic cloud of god knows what. Ironically that pipe was how most of us got out of the track. There were no ladders so it provided firm enough ground from which you could grab onto the edge and pull yourself up. You could try to grip and push off the side of the wall itself, but this usually resulted in cut feet from the barnacles or worse - breaking off the brittle spines of a sea urchin; which was almost impossible to remove from your feet.
Trying to edge it out with a needle, as you would do with a splinter, only makes the situation worse as the delicate spine begins to disintegrate. One local remedy, which I have been subjected to multiple times, is to lather the foot in rihaakuru (fish paste from tuna) and to then hover them over a burning fire. The rihaakru heats up, which in turn heats up the embedded spine which then allegedly begins to melt off. I am still suspicious about the efficacy of this treatment, and whether the intense pain was worth it, as it never seemed to remove all of the spines.
By far the best thing about those practices was the sense of community it fostered. Each parent would bring something different for the long weekend sessions; favourites being chilled Milo with sweetened condensed milk instead of sugar and oranges coated in pure glucose powder. Even though the energy drink craze was many decades away we were never lacking in a source of incredibly unhealthy energy.
A highlight for me was taking part in the 2-kilometre race which was swum parallel from one end of the harbour to the track and back again. I came in last, but at least I managed to finish it. I was also, if I recall correctly, about 12 years old at the time; and thus at a considerable size disadvantage compared to most of the other participants to say the least.
Young man screams into the water.
Canon PowerShot G10
(2009)
For a lot of people, the Track was the closest you could get to escaping the claustrophobic heat of the inner city short of leaving the island itself. Many people would sit around the shallow side in waist high water, submerged up to their necks, chatting about current events. Others would sit on or cling to the outer side of the swimming platform - the inner usually being occupied by the swimming practices of various schools.
Women hang onto the edge of the platform.
Another favourite activity was to dive into the water from the road side. Some people would even start from the opposite pavement. They would wait patiently for traffic to cease, after which they would dash across; spring boarding into the water from the concrete at the last possible moment.
Pentax Optio M30
(2007)
I loved the rush of that split second before contact when you are suspended in the air. People would really try to push their luck, sometimes coming within inches of scraping themselves on the rocks which were lined up against the wall of that area of the track. The most impressive jump I’ve ever seen was from this man who flew so far that he managed to land inside the floating swim area, his feet just barely making it past the buoys.
Pentax Optio M30
(2007)
Canon PowerShot G10
(2009)
The swimming platforms themselves had gone through various iterations before finally settling on the ones made from seemingly indestructible orange and blue plastic buoys that are there today. If I remember correctly they used empty barrels to keep the old wooden platforms afloat. Swimming lanes would be created by ropes that would extend between buoys. As a result these older versions were much less rigid and were prone to drift around in the current.
One of the old platforms.
Nikon D70s
(2007)
Boy sits at the edge of one of the older iterations of the swimming platforms.
Nikon D70s
(2007)
This photograph was taken around the time the new platform was constructed. The older platform lays discarded in the background.
Nikon D70s
(2007)
One of the greatest pleasures in life is to go for a swim when its raining on a hot day. Oh how I miss that feeling. The rain pounds down from above, an onslaught of tepid fat drops that instantly soaks you to the bone. When you make your way into the water, the relative cool of the air makes the water feel extra warm; almost as if it is heated.
Boy stands on plank of floating wood held up by his friends while a rainbow arcs overhead. Looking through my archives I didn't seem to have any photographs of when it was actually raining. I must have been enjoying it too much.
Canon PowerShot G10
(2009)
The sound of the rain against the water drowns out the noise of the city. The sound is hypnotic. Meditative. The complete opposite of what one is used to hearing. No more rumbling machinery. No more buzzing drills and slamming hammers. The roads, normally packed with motorcycles, clear out. The rain also creates the illusion of privacy. One feels safe within the storm, and emboldened by this torrential veil, couples hold each other closer than they would have in the sun.
The STELCO towers from the water on a stormy day.
Canon PowerShot G10
(2009)
Your Track experience really isn’t complete unless you’ve been smacked across the face with a used condom at least once. Conservative attitudes and cramped quarters means that people don’t have much room to breathe; and if you don’t have space to talk in private with a loved one, just imagine how little space there is to have sex. Couples embrace along the floating barriers and sometimes even inside the crevices formed by the tripod rocks.
Girl sits meditating on the tripod rocks staring out to sea.
Expired Disposable Underwater Tropicolor 35mm film camera
(2007)
The tripod rocks themselves could be the basis of its own essay. In a similar manner to how the Track forms a barrier against the bustle of the city, the tripod rocks form a refuge from the Track itself. When I was in primary school I’d listen wide eyed to the tall tales of my cool friend who’d tell me all about his older brother who would go there to smoke cigars in secret. When I was older my friends who smoked cigarettes would continue the tradition by carrying their packs and lighters wrapped up in plastic bags. They would climb to the top of the rocks, unpack their bounty, light up and breathe deeply while staring off into the expanse of the ocean beyond the horizon.
The view from the tripod rocks faces south, away from the atoll.
Image via Google Earth.
© 2016 Digital Globe
© 2016 CNES / Astrium
When you are looking away from the island in that direction for a few brief moments it is as if the city behind you doesn’t exist. The ocean breeze feels fresh and untainted and the sound of the waves constantly crashing down on the rocks drowns out all but the most obnoxious of motorists. Many lovers have sat there, holding hands and staring off into the distance, wondering what the future holds.
View from the rocks at dusk.
View from the rocks at dusk.
Nikon D70s
(2007)
Boy stands on top of the lower section of tripod rocks. These breaks relieve pressure on the rest of the rocks by allowing waves to enter.
Canon PowerShot G10
(2009)
People making their way back off the rocks.
Canon PowerShot G10
(2009)
Shoals of fish gathering near the rocks on the island facing side.
Canon PowerShot A630
(2008)
Unlike a regular swimming pool, sterile and barren, the Track is full of marine life. In many ways it is its own ecosystem, with new arrivals constantly swimming in through the gaps of the tripod rocks. A dead dolphin even made an appearance at one of the practice sessions and caused quite the commotion.
Shoal of small fish underneath the swimming platform.
Canon PowerShot G10
(2009)
The underside of the plastic buoys that make up the current platform is completely covered in moss and other organisms.
Canon PowerShot G10
(2009)
Waves crashing in from where the tripod rocks are lower. This is where most new arrivals enter.
Canon PowerShot A630
(2008)
Various fish swim along the barrier which separates the track from the boats.
Canon PowerShot A630
(2008)
It is a common sight to see small specimens of different kinds of filolhu (a type of fish from the Lethrinidae family - commonly known as emperors) cruising along the sandy bottom. Sometimes this bottom is covered with a certain jellyfish that has the appearance of a cake covered in many little candles.
Close up of the "candles" on one of the "cake" jellyfish.
Canon PowerShot G10
(2009)
A spiky pufferfish swims by.
Pentax Optio M30
(2008)
Some type of blenny or goby resting on the bottom.
Canon PowerShot G10
(2009)
An anemone trying to survive.
Canon PowerShot G10
(2009)
A lot of young people, myself included, would sometimes try to catch a type of pipefish (a relative of the seahorse) with our hands as it often rested along the rocky shallows. Chasing them around provided a fun challenge; although it does seem cruel and unnecessary in retrospect.
The bottom of the track. No pristine white sands here.
Canon PowerShot A630
(2008)
A resting pipefish.
Canon PowerShot A630
(2008)
The tripod rocks are always covered with several types of sea snails and a type of crab. The crabs would sit around in groups picking off bits of moss with their claws. When it was time for them to moult, they would climb up onto higher ground and discard their shells. People would often collect these perfectly preserved carapaces as souvenirs.
Crab sits on the exposed tip of a submerged rock.
Nikon Coolpix 3200
(2007)
A close up of one of the crabs. This photograph was taken at Raalhugandu. The same species is present all around the island.
Henveiru ward
Nikon D70s
(2007)
The state of life in the Track seems to be on the decline. When I was young I’d go with my mother and hunt for raakani, a kind of shellfish that is delicious when barbecued. We’d find them along the bottom and along the shallower parts of the ocean facing side. We kept it up for a few months until we stopped finding them. Perhaps others were doing the same and we were all actively hurting the ecosystem.
A sea urchin covered in a plastic bag. This type is not dangerous as the spikes are a lot short, blunt and much less prone to breaking off.
Canon PowerShot G10
(2009)
Similarly, when I was a teenager I used to accompany some friends who would go hunting in the track for lion fish and other exotic species for their marine tank. These adventures followed a similar pattern. A time of abundance followed by a slow decline until eventually we were barely catching anything at all.
Canon PowerShot G10
(2009)
One thing that was never in short supply is trash. All kinds of trash. You name it, it’s there. Bottles, cooking utensils, chairs, entire beds, all manner of plastic and food wrappers, cigarette butts, pens, pencils, cans, clothing, national flags, motor parts; if it was something that someone in Male’ city had used it at some point, then it was almost a certainty that you'd find it at the track.
Other than various sporadic efforts to clean up the place by youths and various other organisations, there isn’t really a system in place to manage the trash.
Pentax Optio M30
(2007)
Maldivian’s have an extremely nonchalant attitude towards waste disposal. A clue is in our word for beach - “gondudhoh”; which literally translates to by the (dhoh) trash dump (gondu). In islands that still have beaches, the tradition is maintained by turning one side of the island into a complete ecological disaster. Many islands I’ve visited have had this side completely inaccessible as the bottom is covered with dangerous trash such as broken glass and hundreds of little cans of tomato paste. Another historical use of the beach was to defecate - the method being to dig a small hole in the sand which one would cover afterwards. This was even the case in Male’ for when my parents’ generation was young as back then the island still had some of its beaches intact. They would tell us stories to gross us out, about how bad the place smelled, and how they would occasionally step on someone else’s business accidentally.
The current residents of Male’ City are no longer so lucky, so perhaps in a strange way, dumping endless amounts of trash into one of the few places they can still go for a swim is their way of having a gondudhoh of their own.
A small Maldivian flag lays discarded at the bottom of the track.
Pentax Optio M30
(2007)
Why Do I Write In English?
Is there an easy answer to this question? Primarily I think I speak and write in English because it has been necessary for my survival. Most people from the Maldives are bilingual because of this reason. Our language, Dhivehi, is only spoken by us. And of us there are not many.
Is there an easy answer to this question? Primarily I think I speak and write in English because it has been necessary for my survival. Most people from the Maldives are bilingual because of this reason. Our language, Dhivehi, is only spoken by us. And of us there are not many. You could even argue that Dhivehi as we used to know it is dead. Instead in it’s place we have something you could call Dhinglish. Most Maldivians speak this way; quickly switching between languages on the fly. You could start a sentence off with Dhivehi and end it with English and it would still make perfect sense to most people. Some see this as a bad thing, but I see it as a natural progression of the Dhivehi language. Before we were forced to adapt to the English speaking globalised world, we had to adapt to Arabic after we were forcefully converted to Islam. The amount of Arabic words Maldivians suddenly had to use in their vocabulary made it necessary; even the script was changed almost entirely to accommodate the Arabic language – with Dhives script looking almost nothing like modern Thaana; which is actually based on the characters used for the Arabic counting system.
But I digress. Why do I write in English? If I were to write in Dhivehi, it would certainly help keep the language alive; but who would read it if not for other Maldivians? Is there a point to maintaining such an echo chamber? Many conservative writers publish in Dhivehi exclusively for this very reason as it provides an easy way to conceal their more bizarre ideas from the rest of the world. If I had the time or the riches I would write in both languages. I have neither, so I might as well write in English so that what I write can be understood by most people around the world. Maybe if I spoke French or something like that I could have more vehemently stuck with my mother tongue; but alas I do not. There are simply not enough of us, and our power and influence on the global stage is so negligible that we might as well not exist. Maumoon, for all his faults, recognised this and made it a point to infuse English learning into the education system.
English serves as a kind of bridging language. When I speak with my Indian or Sri Lankan friends, we do not speak in the familiar sounds of a common South Asian language, but in English. Despite our languages sounding similar and having a similar root, if we were both to stick to the language of our ancestors, we wouldn’t understand what was being said at all. It’s the same situation with almost every bilingual person I’ve ever met. The common bridge between us, what lets us understand one another, is English.
But does that answer the whole story? In the future when another language has become the global bridging language perhaps these words will also be translated to a more accessible tongue. But for now, what gave English so much power? Why do I write in English?
I believe a part of the answer would lie in the current dominance of English language media. America rules the world, not through it’s army, but through Hollywood and their entertainment industry. Their hold on the global psyche is immense. Kids from my hometown call each other “nigger” just to sound cool. Many people comment on my accent and say that it sounds American. How strange is that? In 2015, Game of Thrones was the most pirated TV show in the entire world. There isn’t enough of a market to justify translating such popular shows into languages like Dhivehi, so what do we do? We watch the English versions.
This makes me wonder if the American dominance of such media is because of it’s quality or because of the fact that it’s in English makes it readily consumable by a global audience. I say this because even if I’m watching something in another language altogether like Japanese, it’s because of the English subtitles that I am able to comprehend it at all. These English subtitles exist because there is a significant market for English speakers; and for people such as myself, it is much easier to just rely on these subtitles rather than learn yet another language. Thus, rather ironically, the key to disrupting the dominance of English media might actually be to increase the accessibility of content in other languages by making sure English subtitles are always available.
There are no programs that automatically translate English captions to Dhivehi or vice versa; but Dhivehi media captioned in English can potentially be translated to a variety of languages with relative ease – instantly making Dhivehi language media accessible to a global audience. For example here is an excellent short documentary about a Maldivian icon called Nasira by Hulhevi media. If they had chosen not to subtitle their work the audience for it would have been severely restricted to just the half a million or so people in the world who speak Dhivehi.
Even the internet itself, and indeed many computer languages, is built upon an understanding of English and Latin characters. I am not sure if it would even be technically possible to have a URL in Dhivehi because of the marks we use around letters to signify vowels. My point being, if I didn’t know English, would I even be able to use computers? Or the internet? Or my phone? Once again, a lack of a market means that there have never been any operating systems etc that have a Dhivehi language interface.
The Maldives is at extreme risk of global factors such as climate change. If I don’t understand English, how would I even begin to understand and comprehend the research and dialogue around the issue? Like I said earlier, learning and being fluent in English for me is a matter of survival. One of the first things some people have said to me, especially within a university environment, has been “oh you speak SUCH good English!”. I know they mean no wrong, but for some reason the statement never fails to annoy me. Of course I speak good English! Why are you so surprised? Is it because you thought your language too challenging for someone in my skin? Maybe I find it so annoying because it makes me feel constantly judged; and makes me wonder what people who say such things think about people who don’t speak “such good English”.
When Mohamed Nasheed made his plea on the global stage for the world to be more mindful of how it’s excesses affect small island nations such as the Maldives; do you think they would have listened if he did not speak “such good English”? The plight of nations such as the Maldives makes me incredibly suspicious of people who want to do things like leave uncontacted tribes forever in the dark. Are we really that naive as to think they will truly be unaffected by our actions simply because we have not directly interacted with them? Will they not see the effects of the world in their immediate surroundings? Will they not notice the lack of food once, say the forestry industry, has encircled their entire ancestral homeland? Do they not deserve to be told what’s happening to the world that is as much theirs as it is ours? And once they speak on a global stage, how would we understand them, if not through translations or subtitles in English?
So ultimately, I think the reason I write in English is because I have no other choice.
TVM Haze
The world has changed so much in the past few decades. The sheer amount of information we have accessible at our fingertips is sometimes hard to comprehend. If you are a person who has the privilege of internet access, the only excuse you have for your ignorance is yourself.
The world has changed so much in the past few decades. The sheer amount of information we have accessible at our fingertips is sometimes hard to comprehend. If you are a person who has the privilege of internet access, the only excuse you have for your ignorance is yourself.
So what then, can we say about a regime that chose to keep its subjects ignorant? For the longest time, all the way until 2008, the Maldivian public had access to only one public TV channel. Television gets a lot of flak for being responsible for dumbing down populations; but I am of the opinion that the people that hold such views are often people who have been spoiled for choice when it comes to such media.
Television Maldives, or TVM, was founded on March 29th 1978; the same year that one of Asia’s longest ruling dictators came to power. It would remain the only local TV station for the entirety of his rule. The 2nd TV station to be formed, DhiTV, was inaugurated by him in 2008; timed perhaps so that he can claim that he had allowed more than one TV station to operate during his 30 year rule from 1978 to 2008. There was also of course TVM Plus, a short lived paid iteration that started around the turn of the century – but it was so lacking in original content that it could barely classify as its own fully fledged channel.
To say the content on TVM was controlled would be an understatement. The quality of content was also quite terrible; with very few shows featuring original works by locals. The majority of what we saw were pirated shows and music videos that always looked as if they were covered in grease, and shot through a tattered veil. My memories of the Disney Classics for instance are caked in this grime. Cartoons such as this would be shown in the afternoon, starting around 5 o’clock. They would end abruptly at the call for Magrib and Isha prayers from around 6-7 and would return only with the news at 8. If you were lucky they’d continue where they left of the next day; and if they didn’t, too bad! The best you could do was hope that they’d have a re-run at some point.
The news itself would always talk more about the terrors going on in places such as Palestine more so than anything that was remotely relevant locally; with such news being mostly restricted to the goings on at schools, or to Maumoon inaugurating some new building. The opposition would always be characterised as thugs. Instead of using the word “protest” they would always use negative lingo like “disturbances” and “threats to the peace”.
The pirated foreign content was always heavily censored. This ranged from eliminating images of people drinking, kissing, hugging and having sex, to the bizarre removal of scenes where people take their coats off after being outside. The most paradoxical part about all this was the need to still show content and maintain the façade that Maldivians are still hip consumers of Western culture. For instance there were several music video shows that would show after the 2PM news, around 2:30, that were presented in English that focused almost entirely on Western music. Most of the videos shown on it would be entirely incoherent due to the majority of the video being censored out. The fact that they accomplished this, with music videos at least, was by constantly looping the “halal” sections made the whole affair incredibly confusing. For example “It wasn’t me” by Shaggy mostly consisted of looped footage of his conversations with Rikrok; along with the former constantly getting out of his car. Yet the song was so popular that a cover version sung at the interschool singing competition, in which the song lyrics were adapted to be about the local tale of Foolhudhiguhandi and Aiminaabee’, remained a hit for almost a year.
The most loved original content was without a doubt the various dramas and music videos made by the local film industry. Most of this was however incredibly lacking in imagination and consisted almost entirely of songs, and often entire movies, ripped off from Indian cinema. In this regard the local film industry was, and still is, utterly shameless. To make things worse the strict censorship laws and stifling atmosphere of those times meant that the subject matter was always mundane; dealing with enthralling topics such as standard domestic dramas and infidelity. Still, there is probably a lot we could learn from the analysis of media produced by the film industry in those times. What were the common themes? What was left unsaid in these dramas? In what ways were the flamboyant dances of Indian cinema adapted to the apparently pious and god fearing Maldivian market? You could write a whole book about the psychology and sociology behind tight skin coloured cloth that some music stars used to cover exposed areas such as midriffs during their dances.
Most of the interesting content on TVM surfaced during Roadha mas. During this month of fasting most people stayed up late into the night so as to have a final meal before the day ahead. This provided a great excuse to create several late night programs; many of which were interactive game shows where contestants could call in to participate. Also of note is how the broadcast of Baibalaa tournaments during this time may have indirectly played a part in the creation of the many gangs which call Male’ their home. Most of these gangs started off as “sports clubs” and to this day maintain that façade of legitimacy in their operations. Framing it as a politician funding a sports clubs activities just sounds so much better than the mafia paying off hired thugs.
The Maldivian populace, desperate for entertainment, were forced to adapt. When I was growing up piracy was the norm. If the state, with all its vast revenues from tourism, cannot afford to buy original tapes to show on their channel; then what hope does the average citizen have of obtaining such luxuries?
One of the options was the local pirate tape rental. They’d have a vast library of murky copies that you could rent for 10 ruffiya a week. Sometimes my mother would rent something as a treat for my sister and myself; and we’d rewind and watch that tape until we’d memorised all of it. Sometimes multiple times a day. You could say this is common practice worldwide for kids that grew up with VCRs before the internet; but these weren’t clear copies. These were copies, much like the ones shown on TVM, with such terrible video quality and reverberating audio that you could barely decipher what was going on in some scenes. We were just that starved for entertainment.
One of the other options was to invest in a satellite dish. Some of the incredibly rich even had paid subscriptions. Most people, however, used decoders which let you access almost all of the paid channels for free. My uncle had such a set up, so we ran a cable all the way from his house to our TV. We couldn’t change the channel and were forced to watch whatever his decoder had been set to, but it was still much better than only having access to TVM. When my uncle got rid of his satellite, we put a cable in from my aunts; and when it was time for Dragon Ball Z, my sister and I would call them up to see if they could maybe change the channel to Cartoon Network for an hour. We must have been quite annoying.
In the 2000s some cable operators did begin service; but their catalogue was severely limited and overpriced. The pirate satellites still remained the better option. Some enterprising individuals even figured out that some Indian subscription services worked all the way down south in the Maldives; leading to rooftops being dotted with that particular type of dish for quite a while until the service providers became wary and began cancelling accounts.
These foreign cable stations provided a window to a greater world that Maldivians simply did not have access to in the past. They also served a strange form of self-validation in our own existence. I remember people proclaiming with astonished voices that “even the BBC” was reporting on events such as the historic protests of 2004. To finally see tyrants like Maumoon grilled by foreign journalists during the 2008 elections was nothing short of a revelation. The questions asked in the Al Jazeera video below, for example, are questions that very few local journalists would have even dared to ask back in those days. Mohamed Nasheed did not get imprisoned for his work with Sangu by accident.
101 East speaks to Asia's longest serving leader Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and opposition candidate Mohamed Nasheed at the Maldives' first free elections. In this edition of 101 East, we look at this turning point of democracy in Maldivian history and ask both presidential candidates why Maldivians should vote for them. - Al Jazeera English
Despite all these avenues for consuming pirated foreign content, the amount of local content was still shockingly low. With the advent of the internet, self-publishing, and more affordable technologies, this has changed quite a bit. Anyone can now create a show and post it onto places YouTube for the whole world to see. And there are now several local TV stations that compete with TVM as well.
Yet Maldivian media remains in its infancy, still struggling to find an identity from the years of that information blackout. In a way we are now undergoing our first renaissance of the creative arts. I am sure the Maumoon regime would like to take credit for this, but I think it has more to do with the world advancing as a whole rather than any conscious effort by them to improve the situation.
During Mohamed Nasheed rule, perhaps to distance his fledgling democracy from the days of dictatorship, TVM was renamed to MNBC One. But not for long. The station was so close to the hearts of the regime and its supporters that it was one of the first government buildings stormed and taken over by mutinying police during the coup of 2012; after which it was promptly renamed back to TVM. Some people say this is because the “secret” meaning of MNBC was not “Maldives National Broadcasting Corporation” but “Mohamed Nasheed Broadcasting Corporation”.
I think it was because TVM was like a mother to many regime loyalists. TVM back then was our way of communicating with our god, Maumoon. The days he gave Friday sermons were the days that the mosque was most packed. And of course these sermons were broadcast live on TVM for everyone at home, mostly women and children preparing lunch for the pious men who are busy praying, could soak it in as well. They find comfort in the nostalgia of those “peaceful” days of ignorance. In the endless songs of nationalism, penned by none other than god himself. Even now many people moan about the loss of the “peaceful” Maldivian community to the chaos of “politics”. Back then we never heard about the people that were abused and tortured in Maumoon’s prisons, so many people took this lack of information to mean that everything was OK. Back then many of the rural islands were, and still are, poverty stricken and lacking in basic development; which many people from the capital interpreted as “the simple life” that we are so missing out on today. Many of these people have never had to live “the simple life” and are simply tourists who exotify the rural islands they visit during their holidays. Even well into the 2000s, while those in the capital complained about slow internet, many in the islands still lacked proper sewage systems and electrical plants.
Yet still many people long for the days that we spent lost within that TVM haze. The drone of the no signal tone and the coloured bars that went along with it while I waited for programming to start are still burned into my mind; and much of this programming the Maldives has yet to overcome.
Fear of the Dark
All the while the rushing would intensify as if heading towards some grim crescendo. As this feeling grew and I drowned in feelings of utter helplessness, so did a growing panic that something... bad.... was about to happen. This jinni, this being, was going to take my life - or worse - take my sanity and run screaming with it all the way to hell.
A draft of Chapter 01 of "Apostates in Paradise"
“He’s a Christian…” he whispered gesturing towards a boy several rows of desks in front of us.
“What do you mean he’s a Christian?” I asked.
“Well, I went swimming the other day right, and I saw he was wearing a pendant on his necklace”
“A pendant…?”
“Yeah, it was shaped like a cross. He said it was just a knife, but I’m sure it was meant to be a cross. Only those Christian crosses look like that”
“Huh…”
The bell for interval rang and the conversation ended. I was 11.
A year later two planes flew into the World Trade Centre complex, killing 2852 people.
There were kids in class celebrating, 12 year olds joyously celebrating the death of the “infidel Americans” and the tyrant “West”. All of them were avid consumers of media produced by these “infidels”; Hollywood & Bollywood movies, South Park, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Tom & Jerry, Friends, Michael Jackson, Nirvana, Megadeth, Metallica, Slip Knot, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Eminem, terrible pop music like Aqua, video games, the World Wrestling Federation, Harry Potter, The Famous Five, Goosebumps, all manner of cartoons and everything else imaginable. Most media back then was either pirated or from satellite TV; with healthy doses of government propaganda being provided by the only TV channel, TVM or Television Maldives.
“They deserved it” they said. “They had it coming, kafir scum”. I asked them why, I remember getting angry and saying that they were people too but mostly I remember feeling confused, lost and sorrowful. I was quite naïve about hatred back then.
***
I'm peddling a bicycle through a winding unpaved road. The complete darkness alternated with pools of focused light created by the street lamps. The tires make a soft sashaying sound against the coral rich sand as I make my way back towards the bungalow. Each time I dipped into the darkness I felt a dread grow deep within me, which was replaced my relief the moment I escaped those inky clutches and rode back under the lights. All the while under my breath I would recite the shahaadhai'. And so it went, in a most bipolar fashion until I made it back to the safe embrace of fluorescent lights, television and familiar company.
All of these things seemed to repel the illusive jinni - whose mysterious evils were the source of my fears. I was never truly afraid of the dark as a child until I was informed about their existence. What was just an absence of light quickly became a source of paranoid hallucinations and imaginations gone wild.
Looking back on it, I cannot quite place my finger on exactly why I was afraid of them. Was it because I feared I would be possessed? Was it because of the stories of evil jinni who hated Allah and fought for Shaithan? I am not quite sure.
But what I do remember is I did not used to be afraid of the dark until I learned that within the darkness was where the beings of smokeless fire dwelled. I do not remember the exact moment. It was some friend of the family or perhaps some work associate of my parents. We were heading towards the beach, or perhaps we were coming back, but out of nowhere was the warning – “don't go in the dark, jinni live there!”
At first I laughed it off. I did not believe they existed at that point. My parents were not the type to talk about such things just to scare their children. If they didn’t want me to do something, they just told me not to do it. For example they were not the kind of people to teach their kids to be afraid of the ocean, but they would still let us know to be careful in case there were sharks about. If there was some danger they told me about the danger. So I asked my mother and to my surprise she confirmed their existence with a grave face.
These fears manifested themselves through several nightmares which I have had. I do not often have nightmares, most of the terror I experience in the nocturnal realm transforms to excitement, to some adventure, so I remember these blood chilling experiences well.
They all involved sleep paralysis, and the utterly terrifying sensation of being awake but being completely helpless to move on your own accord. I would hear a great rushing noise, almost as if I was within a roaring typhoon. A great whirling grey energy, flecked with black and silver streaks, would surround me and manifest itself near my head at the foot of the bed. I would see all this through my peripheral vision as I strained to move my head; which like the rest of my body felt bolted onto the bed by invisible steel girders that felt as if they had as much weight as celestial objects. There are few things in life as terrifying as your own body disobeying your orders.
All the while the rushing would intensify as if heading towards some grim crescendo. As this feeling grew and I drowned in feelings of utter helplessness, so did a growing panic that something... bad.... was about to happen. This jinni, this being, was going to take my life - or worse - take my sanity and run screaming with it all the way to hell.
As soon as it began, it would stop. I would spring up, bathed in cold sweat and panting as if I had just swam a great distance. I would look wildly around the room to see were my tormentor had concealed themselves.
Over and over again I would say the shahaada. Laa-ilaaha-illallah, Muhammadhu-rasoolullah, Laa-ilaaha-illallah, Muhammadhu-rasoolullah, Laa-ilaaha-illallah, Muhammadhu-rasoolullah. Through gritted teeth I would recite those verses over and over again until I managed to calm myself down.
I never doubted that it was jinni who were responsible. Who else could it be? Jinni were always blamed for such things. All the monsters and beings of Maldivian folklore had been transformed into a tale involving some kind of jinni. They were why we stayed away from certain kinds of trees when it was dark. They were why we stayed away from the dark - period. Surely only extremely dangerous creatures would be worthy of such avoidance?
And so the night light stayed on.
***
Fast forward to grade 9 of high school in 2004 and the “war on terror” was on in full swing. All the rage in computing class was watching footage from the war and sharing pornography.
“This is the best one yet”, said some classmates who were huddled around a computer. I got up and walked over to have a look.
The grainy, pixelated footage showed someone who appeared to be from the US army, kneeling in a dimly lit room, facing the camera with eyes covered and hands bound. Behind him is the black flag of the Mujahedeen. A man walks in, carrying a rusty blade and wearing a balaclava, who proceeds to rough his prisoner up while yelling and gesturing at the camera.
“Here we go…” one of my classmates said.
As if on cue the masked man suddenly grabs his captive from behind and begins to saw and hack away at his neck. Blood bursts out covering himself, the floor and his executioner’s hands. He kicks his legs and flays about hopelessly, all while blood gushes and spurts out of his mouth as he desperately tries to breathe.
The soldier’s agony is drawn out for what seemed like an hour while the man, whose eagerness was only surpassed by his clumsiness with a knife, continued to gleefully cut away at the mutilated flesh until his head was finally severed. He grips it by the scalp and triumphantly shows it to the camera, blood still oozing from its ragged base.
It was the most horrifying act of violence I have ever seen. My mind was spinning, I felt nauseous. The soldier’s dead eyes kept flickering in my consciousness like a strobe. I saw some friends have the same reaction; others were already joking about it and making faces.
“They deserve that shit, those fucking Americans” one of them sneered.
“Damn infidels and Jews” said another.
I died a little that day. Some part of me is now gone and lost forever. I used to be squeamish but after that, the goriest horror movies do little to affect me. How could the imaginary ever be as terrifying?
Gone too was my fear of the dark. What protection could a nightlight offer from the waking horror of a world filled with the realities of man?
Children of the Islands pt.I - Fishing
The sound of a koveli. A freshness in the air, crisp with the smell of Palm leaves basking in the light of dawn. A hurried breakfast, the clinking of bicycle gears and the rattling of bottles and tin cans in a bucket. We were off! I look back and smile at my sister. She grins back, beaming that she was riding her bike without her training wheels. She had thrown them into the ocean a few days ago after they had given her a cut. She didn't need them anyways.
We rode along a path dappled in the shaded light of an avenue of palms. The sand made gentle crunches beneath our tires as we swerved around the many slight dips and curves which pockmarked the unpaved earth. We got to the canteens and immediately ran to the back with our bucket to find the chef. The chef was a cheery fellow and he always greeted us with a laugh. Do you have any bait? Of Course! He'd say. He had a bit of guts and off cuts left from the garudhiya they were making for lunch. We collect some in the bucket, say our thanks and set off again, this time heading towards the harbour.
The crunching was gone, replaced with a much more uniform whirring now that we were on paved ground. They are such odd things. We need them for our tires yet they feel harsh and unweilding beneath our feet.
We reach the harbour and park our bikes near the inner edge. Here first and the outer edge later. Will the korakali be here today? Do you think we'll catch a big filolhu? My sister asks grinning. I hope so, I reply.
I remove some of the offcuts from the bucket and place them on the ground so I could slice them into little slivers. We put some on our hooks and hold our plastic bottles towards the ocean, before throwing them out into the murky depths of the bay. Almost immediately ripples appear on the dark green surface, all heading towards the sinking hooks. We grin at each other knowingly and slowly begin to pull the line in, carefully wrapping it around the bottle as we did. Tangled lines could be a nightmare!
Sure enough, the ripples began chasing the hook, and as it got shallower we could see a small school of korakali excitedly chasing the bait. The trick was to slow it down, and sharply tug it right after they'd had a bit of a nibble. My sister hooked one and then I had one too. Soon we had dozens and were running low on bait. But not to worry. A dhoni was pulling up. After they docked, I asked one of the fishermen if we could please have some bandaidhoo; which is the cut of meat right outside the stomach of a fish and below the gills. It was firm and the fact that it still had skin meant that it'd stay much more securely attached to the hook. To top it off, most fish went bonkers for the stuff. He laughed and asked if we had caught anything yet. I was 11 and my sister was 6, both of us were wearing kiddy hats like typical city kids, and must have looked quite out of place on that smelly and industrial looking harbour. I pointed to the bucket full of croaking korakali. He laughed heartily and told someone on the ship to fetch us a tuna. He then cut out the bandidhoo himself and gave it to us with his luck and blessing.
Using it,we caught a few more korakali and even a few big fani handhi. It was always a rush seeing the much larger fish zoom amongst the korakali, lunging towards the bait, their magnificent blue fins slicing through the water like neon streamers. They gave a much stronger fight too, and required a bit more patience to reel in; making the reward all the more sweeter.
We were once again almost out of bait, and we hadn't even yet gone to the outer rim of the harbour. There, standing on the jagged rocks, you could throw into a part of the shallow inner lagoon that was home to schools of ori; which dwelled between the sea grass meadows and the rocks.
Are we going back? My sister asked. Nah we'll just use the korakali! And if we ran out of that, we could always find some golhaa hiding among the rocks.
So we cut some of the little fish up and try our luck at the ori. The water on this side of the harbour was much clearer and, we could see the fish excitedly huddle around the bait, almost as if having some secret conversation. My sister hooks one almost immediately. She had a gift for catching ori. She knew exactly when to execute that all important final tug, just as the fish was turning to leave, not too quick, not too late. Grinning like a mad child she'd expertly let the fish swim off a bit to the left and then right before pulling it in again, slowly tiring the fish.
A violent tug at the line around my fingers and I almost slip off the rocks. I regain my balance, only to hear the sharp wet twang of the hook snapping off. Annoyed, I begin to wrap it back onto the bottle so I could tie another hook. The previous year, or perhaps it was earlier, my father had taught me the knot, and it is ingrained into my memory to this day to the point where recalling it comes as easy as it was riding that oversized bicycle.
Meanwhile, my sister had pulled up her fish and was holding it out triumphantly. Can you get the hook out for me? She asked. And I hop over the rocks to grab the line and take the fish to where we'd kept the bucket. The ori thrashed around madly and before I could take the hook out, one of its dorsal spines punctures my hand. A strangely deep feeling pain emanates from the wound like a slow burn. Ori apparently have mild toxins in the spines, but it wasn't the first time I'd been stung so I wasn't really worried. I shake my hand a bit and put some fresh bait on my sisters line. We manage to catch a couple more, including a few filolhu that had ventured out from among the seagrass.
The most exciting thing about that little area was the giant muda handhi that would occasionally storm through, smashing through the water at incredible speed and scaring all manner of fish back into hiding, jumping over the surface as they fled in terror. It was so large that if the tide was low, sometimes it's dark blue dorsal fin would slice the top of the water like a shark. Whenever we saw it coming we'd frantically throw our lines in its path. We knew our lines were too weak. And the fish was bigger than us so even if we did catch it, and even if the line did hold, it'd probably just result in the fish catching us. Didn't stop us from trying though.
Buckets full of fish, we pedal back to the canteen to hand our bounty over to the chef. Ahh I could fry these up for lunch he'd say. Triumphant, we returned back to the bungalow to get cleaned up and see what our parents were up to.
I loved that house. It was the complete opposite of our house in Male'. Instead of sleeping on a bunk, we slept on separate beds. Instead of cold water in a tiny bathroom, there was a hot water cylinder in a space that felt like a palace. Instead of smelly tharafaalu that moved when you stepped on it, there was a soft carpet beneath our feet. Instead of just having to deal with the propaganda filled and censored to death TVM being the only channel to watch on TV, there were several international ones to choose from, courtesy of some satellite magic; our favourite being Nickelodeon. It was a joy to watch shows like Kenan & Kel, All That and seeing happy young people smiling and making genuinely funny jokes. The animated shows like Aargh! Real Monsters were such a breath of fresh air from the endless Disney re-runs on TVM. The place was even air conditioned. And it was surrounded by lush vegetation instead of being swallowed in by the looming city around it; with a beautiful beach less than a minute away. This beach encircled the island; much better than a seawall and perimeter road full of traffic. On some mornings when the tide was low, you could walk across the glowing expanse of the lagoon right to the edge of the reef. We had never known such luxury as those few weeks of school holidays. The people were much friendlier and the air was fresher. And it was where my father lived and it was where my Mum smiled the most. She was a school teacher and a mother raising two kids mostly by her self; undoubtedly two of the hardest jobs in the world. After we'd gone back to Male', sometimes by boat, sometimes by plane, I'd cry in secret because I missed him and that happy home.
Did you have a good time? You reek of fish! Did you catch lots? Oh you got stung by an ori? Here, put some dettol and vokadine on it.
Soon we were off again on our bicycles, back to the canteen. The fish was deep fried with delicious spices, and you could even crunch down on the bones of the little korakali and eat the entire fish whole. We laughed and grinned triumphantly. Those were some of the best days of my life and I am incredibly thankful that I was lucky enough to have such experiences.
In August during lockdown, I wrote a haiku in Dhivehi each day. It started off with simple Thaana text on black background, and slowly evolved to incorporate my photographs. It is nice to write haikus in Dhivehi as the structure lends itself nicely to counting the syllables.
The poems themselves seemed to take on a very self reflective nature, with common themes being the ocean, Maldivian life, and life in Male’ City.
I have included english translations for each of them. However do note that sometimes the meaning and syllable structure is lost somewhat in translation.
Originally posted on my instagram.