all that glitters is not gold

"How much would you pay for a chain of stolen gold?" My uncle A.Fulhu told me last evening. Stolen gold??? He was waiting with a friend near the artificial beach when he was approached by a "Paatey" (his words) who offered a thick chain of gold for Rf 1000/= and to prove that it was real gold the "Paatey" even hit the coral wall with the chain a few times. "How did you know that it was stolen?", playing the Devil's Advocate, I asked him. "Why else would a young man in his teens try and sell me a gold chain on the road if it wasn't stolen?" he replied. Good question. No reply. I was relieved when he told me that he did not buy it. Whew!

Stolen gold. Stolen mobile phones. Stolen MP3 players. The list goes on. Nothing new about thieving  except the scale of it. Ever since I returned, all I heard was about someone being mugged, someone's house being broken into, even someone's dhoni being burgled. And then the same old reply. "they never catch them. Even if they did, they are released the next day".

Is it true? If so, when did we ever come to this? More importantly WHY? For drugs is the usual reply. To feed oneself more likely - feed your drug habit, feed yourself, maybe even to pay a medical bill of a loved one? Perhaps. It is easy to see it happening. We already had three people come to our house begging last week. Each of them had a sob story that would put the stories of the beggars on the streets of Chennai to shame. My wife and three kids are starving, one man said. I lost my job because I had to stay awake with a sick child, another said. 

One young woman came with a little child. She was painfully thin but pretty. She wore a faded top and a pair of jeans and her hair was matted and sticky and could do with a good shampooing. The child  had a growth on her leg. Even we could see that it would be extremely painful. The woman wanted money so that she could take the little child to the hospital. My mother was about to give her some money when we noticed that the young woman had scars on her hand as if it had been done by a knife or some sharp object like that. There were several lines all parallel to each other. "Wait" my mother told her. "we will make an appointment with the doctor for your child and someone here will go with you both and take care of the bill". By the time we went in, made a call and got an appointment and came out, the young woman had vanished into thin air.

My family was sure that she was an addict and wanted the money to feed her habit. "If we were not there she would have come right into the house and stolen what was there" they were convinced. Are they right? Would she have used her sick child as an excuse to get money off unsuspecting people to buy more drugs? How did she get those scars on her hand? Did she not have anyone else to turn to? If we were not there, would she have stolen whatever she could lay her hands on? Would she be selling it near the beach next? What of her child? What kind of future would that little boy have? Questions after questions which I had no answer to.

Part of me felt angry with myself for not having been able to help her and the child. Part of me felt angry with her for letting herself into this state, although I knew nothing of the "why" she was in that situation in the first place. Part of me felt angry at the system that let her spiral down to what she has become. How many more young lives were to descend into this pit of despair before something is done about the growing problem of drugs and poverty?

Subconsciously I touched the gold chain on my mother's neck. Somehow the gold had lost its glitter for me. 

Newspapers in challenging times...

I had a look at last evening's Haveeru. It's been a while since I held a paper in my hand as opposed to reading it on the internet.
Most of the main articles were about the constitutional reform or the escalating violence on the streets of Male'. Unlike in times goneby, there was no photo of the President on the front page or about him sending a message to another head of state. Times are indeed changing. But is it for the better?

On the surface it appears so. There was a heart-warming article about three Maldivian students who was among the top 10 in the world for the O'Level Cambridge Examinations. In an interview two of them, Ihma and Zeyna, talked about their studies and their hopes and aspirations for the future; their ambitions to follow their own choices, accountancy and architecture respectively. These young people deserve a bright future.

A few pages later, Haveeru Classified - several blocks of tiny advertisements from rooms to rent to advertising accommodation available for students. I presume they are for students from outer islands studying in Male'. One advert reads simply - Room for rent. Rf 6000/=. A few pages later announcements by various government departments seeking employees. A couple of them drew my attention. Ministry of Youth and Sports seeking an assistant Foreman - Salary Rf 2985/=. Male' Municipality seeking a Senior Administrative Officer, salary Rf 3990/= and qualifications - a first degree. I wondered how many graduates applied for the post? Or how the Assistant Foreman at the Municipality would be able to pay his rent of Rf 6000/= if he was from an island and had to rent a room. Besides, he would still have to eat and pay his utility bills and spend on other day-to-day expenses. What if he fell ill? Would he be able to seek medical help from a doctor listed on the Doctors' Duty Roster that was available on page 9? Or would the advert on page 1o on 'Visit China for 5 days for US $ 777' remain just an advert in a newspaper for him? More adverts on later pages looking for employees from cashiers to security guards.

Then something else caught my eye. An advert by a company which provides foreign workers to local employers. "Want to fill up your vacancies fast with efficient employees?" it read. "Workers from Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand..the list goes on. Aha! If you cannot find local staff on the 3000 odd rufiyaa salary then it maybe easy to get a foreigner. No wonder the place is crawling with them. We Maldivians are short-changed for those willing to work on a lower salary. Now not only the Foreman would have to find ways to pay his bills, he also has to compete with others willing to work on lower wage.

Another page, another story. A women's NGO had petitioned President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom for the second time to find a solution to the on-going drug problem in the Maldives. This is the second time that they are petitioning him calling on the government to take action against this growing menace. Concerned mothers, wives, sisters, daughters. Who else could they turn to if not the highest authority in the country. But would their plea fall on deaf ears once more? Would there be a third, fourth, fifth petition?

All of it paints a depressing picture. Would Ihma and Zeyna be able to achieve their ambitions in a university somewhere and return to a Maldives where a degree holder earns less than half what he/she would be charged for monthly room rent and would they too in the end become victims of this drug problem in their despair? Or would they return to a Maldives where people are paid according to what this nation earns as a whole, where Maldivian people are valued as human beings, and where something would be done about the drugs problem that would seek a long-term solution to the issue?

We can dream. We can hope. We have to. We must.

'Life goes on' attitude

I haven’t had time to go out much but from what little I saw it is unbelievable here. After just a few years, the change hits you in the face like a bullet. I knew things had gone bad in the Maldives, but I never expected this.

Male' is a sea of humanity and concrete mixed together in an unholy bunch. You cannot walk down the street without bumping into hundred other people. The shops are full of goods that people cannot afford to buy. One third of the shops that existed four years ago are no more around. Even a pack of nappies costs over Rf120! How can someone with a baby survive on a Rf3000 salary I have no idea. Everyone you meet complains of the same thing - rising prices, escalating violence. Even today one old lady from Thaa Atoll told me that a bottle of gas costs 230 Rufiya in her island. People have had to go back and chop wood for fuel.

Then there is also a false sense of acceptance around which kinds of worries me - this "life goes on" attitude. Yes, the shop downstairs got burgled last week, yes, there was an incident one block away where someone got knifed, yes, my next door neighbour’s motorbike got stolen yesterday. All these have become such daily occurrence that people are accepting them as part and parcel of life.

I asked a few people I met what do they think is going to happen with the elections? The answer was "the same". Golhaa will stay. I asked them will you go out and vote? The reply – "what's the use? Nothing would change. They will rig the vote anyway!".
One cannot help but feel that Glhaa has covered us with so tight a blanket of despair that we have forgotten that there is a life outside.

2 days in Male;' and even I have become a defeatist!