5.1 The Backdrop

“Step back! Step back! I can see them coming!” and the crowd leaned forward to take a look at the bikers racing from the far end. A national guard in white shirt stood by every corner to control the crowd and everyone obeyed without disrupting the line. A bicycle race on New Year’s Day and fireworks on New Year’s Eve were two of the phenomenal events that took place to mark this day. Besides, evening shows, route marches, street music and dance, firecrackers took place on every public holiday.

Last night he was in the pit of Lonuziyaraii-kol to watch the fireworks in the middle of a crowd crammed of men, women and children. He couldn’t see the national guards in action firing the rockets. Those missiles shoot into the night sky and burst in different sparkling colours with a loud explosion. Little kids cried. Those shells sited not too far from the spectators and often those flares got caught in their feet. That’s what they call a ‘cake’.

Lonuziyaraii-kol referred to land reclaimed from a lagoon in the southeast perimeters of the island capital of Malé. As this area was raised with a colonial touch, the coastal road called Marine Drive enclosed this four-acre park with a promenade built around the island. Housing lots distributed from this area to national guards and top government officials.

One half of the four-acre park remained at sea-level, filled dry with sand, while the other half levelled to land surface and the entire perimeter walled or marked with bolsters. One significant feature around here was that of the towering antennas with guy cables and dead man anchors walled in vaults. A red beacon lit on every tower top and these antennas relayed radio signals to the entire archipelago. Base station of Radio Maldives located here in this waterfront.

In the mornings and evenings, youth took to this park to play games of football, volleyball, basketball and bashi. In the fair winds, they flew kites.

A group of cyclists passed in front of their eyes. V-son leading the cluster in his running shorts and some even shirtless in their briefs sweating like hell pedalling to overtake the other in the rising sun. Some wore homemade knee guards. Some of them took part just for fun and they cheated taking shortcuts through the crowd and across the empty roads to enter the race route from the opposite side. A route marked encircling the town centre occupying sections of Sosun Magu, Ameer Ahmed Magu, Orchid Magu and Majeedi Magu. The race started at six in the morning.

While the crowd paused enthusiastically for the next batch of riders to pass, another fascinating display came from the national guards on brand new Yamaha motorbikes wearing glitter helmets in various colours – a recent supplement. A very senior officer in the national guards tested his adrenaline by accelerating on the dusty road over hundred kilometres an hour to add some miles on his odometer.

On Marine Drive, in the waterfront of Malé, four blocks from his home, Muaz escorted a Swedish tourist to the State Bank of India. A lady who could hardly speak English and he couldn’t speak Swedish. Tourists strolled on the sandy roads in bikinis and briefs, curious about the artefacts in bare souvenir shops, ending up buying a printed T-shirt with the letters ‘MALDIVES’ on the chest. A bustling site to go with activities, people, wheelbarrows and bicycles. Though not too crowded in this front of the resort offices and the banks, government offices and the parliament, lined up to the hallmark clock tower. Breezes from the sea rolled and boats in the inlet harbour danced on the ripples. As the tourists entered the narrow roads, they could feel a hung sensation of quietness, emptiness and cleanliness if not on a puddled lane.

Further to the west in the northern front, boats from the atolls lay congested by the promenade, rows of masts and crowded of people. Voices in the local markets and odours from the fish markets, shops and disorderly cafés in the symmetrical set of two-storey buildings with blue framed windows lined in a row.

Since he was suspended from school in October, Muaz was spending overnights with friends and coming home to sleep during the day. His Mesquite grandmother worriedly suggested that he should find a job.

At home there were certain rules and his mother was less communicative. This family and their relatives spoke in the cast tongue but none referred to him in that tongue because he wasn’t a cast member. Though he had to speak to them in the cast tongue.

It was not a huge gamble since he learned to live with it and fluent in the ordinary vocabulary to talk with his friends and classmates when they fixed him with this nick – madiri. It hurt him bad. Sometimes those relatives called him ‘madiri’ and he could not protest because they observed rules at home.

Nobody talked about religion or politics because that was taboo at his place.

Muaz walked in for a job interview to work at a resort office but the manager here thought he could serve better as an office boy at the Malé office.

On his first day at work, Manager Majid told him to stay late into the evening. He produced a bottle of rum and sat down with the office crowd. Majid passed a drink to the new boy, “Drink it like a fish!”

A little drop. Muaz held his breath and drank it. He vomited at once.

“It’s alright! It’s alright!” cried Majid, “It happens first time. Another one!” and poured a glass, “With more coke this time.”

Muaz tried and retched.

“Easy! Take it easy!” pressed on his chubby boss.

Finally, he was able to finish his Bacardi Rum.

Soon, he was told to attend the airport to receive guests and guide them to the transfer boats. Often joined them to the resort twenty kilometres away. He was given a bicycle to ride.

Every morning he rolled his bike out of the gate at seven to come across a girl going to school. Scores of pupils walked to schools at the hour. She was short with chicken legs, dark hair framing an oval face like a tennis racquet, big eyes and light skin. She attended SES and an SES uniform resembled a white tennis dress; square neck and back, shoulder straps, flared bottom with a six-inch pleated hem that barely covered the bums. In this dress she portrayed a pair of dainty legs, a girth of bosom and vaccine scars on her shoulder.

One day he mounted his bicycle on its stand and took a moment to fix the ‘Home Affairs’ license plate on its front wheel when he saw the girl cross the gate. Muaz took those five hurried steps to the gate to face with the girl standing beside the wall holding the books under her full breasts. At first, he did not know how to react. Then he stepped forward wiping his hands on a piece of cloth with that confidence and a smile.

She asked in a complaining voice, “What are you looking at, Madiri?”

He stood speechless. She knew it.

“You are always staring at my tits!” Muaz retired to the gate and the girl turned away.

Muaz picked his bike and followed her. Reaching the girl, he asked, “What is your name?”

She answered, “Bilqis Adam.”

“What is your grade?”

“I’m in Grade Six.”

“How do you know my name?”

“I know you left school last year.”

And they chatted on the way to school. Muaz did not step down from his bike, not on a first date. Walking a girl with a bike would mean dating. Following a girl on a bike would convey the impression of a nuisance caller and that was who he was. He forgot to ask one important question and he never did ask.

Next day, he walked the girl to school located on Chandni Magu.