Maldives

I was working in Trivandrum and once when my father came, I took him to the famed Kovalam beach nearby. It was in the late Seventies, and Kovalam was almost pristine then. I have to add the modifier “almost” because, although the hideous shacks selling trinkets to coconuts that are there now hadn’t come up then, some religious thugs had just built an ugly pink mosque right on the beach then, which damaged the harmony of the place immensely. On the contrary, the ITDC Hotel, a simple minimalist white structure with red tiles on the slope of a hillock, merged with the backdrop of the blue sky and millions of green coconut trees seamlessly. And barring the mosque, the empty semi-circular beach and the turquoise blue waters with silhouettes of dark fishermen on catamarans returning from a dipping golden sun were fascinatingly beautiful.

After reaching there, my father turned his back to the sea and started smoking a cigarette. Surprised, I asked him, ‘How do you find Kovalam?’

‘All seas are the same,’ he answered absently.

I had had no clue that my father, who had keen interest in lots of fine things in life, was a complete philistine as far as nature was concerned.

As I walked out of the Velana airport, I saw a sparkling sapphire sea which merged into a deep cobalt blue in the distance, colours that I hadn’t seen in my short young life. I recalled the incident in Kovalam and felt even my father wouldn’t have been able to turn his back to these magical waters.

The Maldives consist of over 1100 coral islands, but there are humans on only 188 of them. And I guess most of them have resorts, hotels and liveaboards frequented by tourists, mainly from the West. You can get a sense of the size of the tourism industry there if you consider that this tiny country has four international airports, one for every 100,000 people. (France, Spain, and Sri Lanka have three each.) For our destination, the gateway was Velana Airport, on an island with nothing but the air strip, offices / counters of fifty plus resorts, and a few eateries selling American junk food.

After a short wait, we were on a speed boat to an island which had nothing but the resort. The reception office, the dining hall, an open-air bar, and a store selling knick-knacks at exorbitant price were near the jetty where we got off. In that egg-shaped island, a pathway goes around which you could cover in 20 minutes of leisurely walk. Between the pathway and the beach, there are three two-storey buildings on the western side and two on the east for guests. The space within the elliptical pathway houses the back offices and living quarters for the resort employees. But the entire area is covered by a deep green foliage, you wouldn’t see any of these if you passed by the island on a boat.

From our ground-floor room, we can see the sun dipping on the western horizon beyond a beach of white sands through trees and bushes. It’s late afternoon, but some sun-bathers are still scattered on the shore. I can’t but reflect that although people from the West devour natural resources quite thoughtlessly, they are true minimalists when it comes to swimwear. The women were all in slender bikinis. And their clothes fitted the description that the great Bengali writer Syed Mujtaba Ali once wrote, “You could stitch the panties of three girls with my tie.”

Apart from natural beauty, the clear waters in which you could see millions of corals and colourful fish, what I found wonderful were the people at the resort. Managerial positions were held mostly by Maldivians, and they were unfailingly polite, pleasant, and efficient. At the lower levels were some Maldivians, but mostly, Bangladeshies. They brought from home the famous Bangladeshi hospitality.

Suman, who was obviously at a lower end of the hierarchy, told me that he earned enough to send a decent amount home, and got a two-way ticket to Bangladesh every two years. If he wanted to go more often, he would get a one-way ticket every year. Suman, Sukur Ali, and most other Bangladeshi workers were happy souls and were happier to talk to us in Bangla. But not everyone was equally fortunate.

We met Ahmed (name changed), a deck-hand who accompanied us on the boat when we went dolphin watching. Ahmed had been imported from Bangladesh by another resort. He was treated shabbily, not paid wages, and harassed by his previous employer. He had to run away from that place – sans papers – and had found a temporary job with the boat owner. He too managed to send some money home, but lived with the risks associated with every illegal immigrant.

‘Are you married, Ahmed?’

‘Yes I am. Have a boy and a girl back in Khulna.’

‘How will you go home without a passport?’

‘I don’t know Sir, but Allah will help.’

It is amazing how the poor of the world depend on just one psychological counsellor who does nothing to help them. I have always felt that the most foolish of intellectual pursuits is trying to prove to the believer that god doesn’t exist. He may not exist, but they need him badly.

Bangalore / 21 October 2017