I donât know the the sequence of it. Was it the fenfoah ruh? I am not sure. What seems evident now is that Yameen is out to change Maleâ into something else that it wasnât. Not with a vision for what it could be. But a vision for what it shouldnât be: as it was before, evolving more or less with time and what it entails. This is an overhaul. Perhaps in the name of tharaggee. Getting rid of Lonuziyaaraiy kolhu is the last vestige of Old Maleâ that remains.
The trees are gone. The trees that took years to grow, for strength to build, inside, the trees that slowly and steadily became a part of our mental geography of home, are gone. The mosques are going to be taken away. The mosques that decades of prayer and routine, belief and soul, are taken away. Yameen is shifting Maumoonâs structures around, from here to there, neither that relevant. The park is a joke. The park that was closed off for royalty for so long, then opened up, almost a metaphor for democracy now being replaced with these awful, plastic lights, these nausea of a place, I donât know what to say
Yameen seems willing to be branded a madman to carry this out. I donât know if he believes in sihuru or worse, but it seems like weâve sat by and let him make an authoritarian nightmare out of Maleâ, while calling him a madman. A place bereft of memory or joy, just us now existing and walking and talking within a creation of baaghee envisioned tharaggee. A loveless boy who grew up in a mutant world now erasing all love for everyone else. Petty almost, perhaps. Or evil, the spread of lovelessness. Â
My friend says he feels sorry for Yameen. He says Yameen was neglected and bullied by Maumoon and his father before that. Yes. i feel almost sorry for him also. but then I donât have enough understanding in my repertoire of meaning - of being bullied or neglected - to reach that level of empathy. so i have to try to imagine that is how he has been made. But he is a sentient human being capable of intelligent thought and ability to be self-conscious and understand the meaning of his actions. And if god is love, Yameen lacks both.
My other friend says Yameenakee bodu vageh. Dhen thibeeves hus vagun. Maleâ vagah nagaifi. Aharun mithibee gellifa. Viber ga kanneynge.
Another friend says he is a psychopath. And that is that.Â
In the late eighties and early nineties, we walked on the seawalls around Maleâ that lead to Lonuziyaaraiykolhu. My young cousin Nibu, who died when he was four, I remember walking with him a few months before he died. It was a strange, festive occasion because our entire family went. It began to rain while we were at raalhugandu, and we ran home.
It was usually just our grandfather, and all the grandchildren. It would be still dark when we set out, and then it would become light. Lonuziyaaraiykolhu was part of the routine. It was where we stopped to âget our feet wetâ which would lead to other parts of the body, of course. My grandfather in his mundu, will stand with his arms crossed, while we ran around. We didnât question his patience. It was just how things were. It is scraps and fragments of defined memory, but the inner things, feelings, associated with these scraps, they remain. Maleâ is a part of the identity of all who have grown up here. It has its pull and itâs comfort of memory and familiarity.
Sure you can laugh at sentimentalism, because it is âranduâ or useless. but it is perhaps the heart-things that make people care and love. Sure you can be embarassed at emotion but it is this embarrassment that is making you stifle feelings that could lead to some kind of semi-constructive anger or sadness. Narratives of functionalism are a joke if there if it doesnât account for the drive for function. In my mental geography, the image for Maldives machismo is a bunch of men sitting around in a circle around a table wanking each other off, or perhaps even trying to generate an erection at this point, with a cup of lavazza cooling in front of them. Theethi salhiey kiyan. Balaaehnnu.
That unigas that lends the particular smell at the corner of Lily Magu and Dharumavantha Magu is still there. Dharumavaane.
