Zakir Nayak and Kal Nayak is from India!

Here's for the ladies revealing Cholhike Piese by Nayak (not a PhD Doctor).

an open letter to the wise president

on my own time, in my own world. i miss my mundu which i feel natural inside. hanging myself down with the air flowing. the breeze of my island. with one hand behind my back the other leaning on the wall. looking at the corner of a wall. one wall meeting the other near a door. how clever. and then suddenly i see my car going in front of me. it cannot be. but it had the emblem plates. it cannot be anni at this time, or the majlis guy, because it's a used benz. it's my car. my driver perhaps taking his girlfriend for a ride... or i'm day dreaming... like i always do. i'm the wise president.

-written by his son.

brooms and boobs

Twentieth time in these two days my buddy Fahmee and I have been to BML Atms located everywhere in Male'. We spend a considerable time on each occasion looking at others waiting before me, impatiently to check the bank balance. Everyone chooses option three from the 3rd screen and take a quick balance printout. Some people bring many cards. Probably of co-workers. All balances are closer to 0. Fahmee's balance is also RF 0.28 each of the times we checked.

We are waiting for the salary to be transfered. All the people are waiting and checking which ATM gets the money first. Last month I said BML near IGMH, Fakey (Fahmee's nick name) ATM near STO will get the salaries first. He won and I had to give him a coffee which he paid with the salary money he took. This time I am saying Olympus ATM. All our friends play this game. Which ATM gets the salary first. Very fun game for the end of the month. Can somebody make this a facebook game?

We are waiting till we get the salary to goto Ugulhey Baazaaru -- the best place in town. Though most have not got the salary yet they have been there once or twice so far. To get squeezed and to squeeze. I have not yet been there this year so far. But I am waiting to go when salary money of Fakey comes to the ATM. I remember last time we bought a lot of brooms and buckets. They are very useful.

My friend Farooq ordered one container from Bangkok for the market. But he could not pay the duty to it is stuck in customs.

I will write about the night market experience after I go.

Evolution of pickup transport in Maldives. A humble appeal to show care.

Strangest of the strange I have been seeing a very strange kind of pickup trucks these days. Sizes ranging from small to large. Each time I see these strange pickups I begin to wonder about the mechanics behind these advanced new heavy load vehicles. It is very useful for places like Fura Male'. With the credit crunch and the economic crisis globally and more noticeably locally these kinds of new vehicles are perhaps how the pickup trucks could best evolve.

With increased fuel prices the WaveRyders like me who fills up my Wave with five Rufiya of petrol each time just get me to go two rounds around Male' which is making us worry. The Wavers need to choose an alternative (with the same productivity as riding around Male'). Some like me might start to count the number of people passing by while I wait on top of my (borrowed) Wave in front of my house... well my boss's (or parent's?) house. Staying on the Wave in an awkward position playing with my phone (which I haven't recharged for few weeks). But I can still press the buttons. And take 0.3 Megapixel photos I will one day upload to a Flickr.

WaveRyders are less, the Taxi prices increase. What can the people do? Protest... nah... rather sit on the bike and play with the phone.. or sleep a bit longer... and do something to annoy the next person. Arrange a community shouting contest. Watch TV if possible forever.

Now back to the new pickup truck which has started to emerge when a certain group of people realized that the fuel or paying for the pickups is too expensive. They get a modified used pickup from a nearby country that can also do a lot more things. Their monthly installment price is very few Rupees or Dakaa. Cheap is good. These pickups are usually multi-owner based. Serve the owners, serve the friends, serve the neighbor same monthly installment.

Smaller versions have two wheels. Can carry two to four sacks of garbage bags (of the volume of a 50kg Hakuru Bastha each). The front can carry the volume of an empty Coast milk case full of garbage. Of cause when these filled with garbage are less heavy, but the pickup truck is a mechanical device it wouldn't complain if it becomes heavier. These breed of pickups just go to the instructed location and deliver them (mostly to the garbage dump).

Then there is the small version. This time with no wheels. The strangest of the strange I saw today the pickup crossing the zebra crossing when the green light for people were on! It was carrying a metal bed. Raised to the top of its two forklift arms. Obviously any onlooker would know that the forklift was overloaded and may collapse anytime. We just cracked a joke about it and we thought these are just mechanical vehicles that runs on the oldest technology of bio-fuel. The people we supposedly imitate used camels as pickups. Now we believe in evolution so we use what the bosses believe are animals from the neighboring nations for these kind of tasks. But they do have a passport, a name, a work permit, and sometimes a soul, a family, a father, a mother, a sister, children.

SAVE THEM! AND STOP ABUSING THEM. TREAT THEM AS THEY ARE OUR CHILDREN OUR PARENTS! THEM = US!

Maldivians to act on the remake of Muhamaduh Rasoolullah series

Muhammadhah Rasoolullah is an old series. They have been showing re-runs for years. And the new google generation is not interested to watch the old style films anymore. So the great big king Fahudh of Arabiya has donated few millions from his trillion dollar empire to do a remake of the series.

The casting director was recently in Maldives and was very happy to find the full cast with all extras from this country. "They do not even need any more costumes or make-up" Al-Ghurai-Bin-Alaq said "we also were able to make a deal with musicians (percussion and natural sound based) and the greatest maldivian vocalist for the project." May Allah bless this country's alternative cultures.

Now the production directors are deciding whether to bring the camels to Maldives and shoot or to modernize the role of camels using Wave cycles (all models). But they have to think of a way to sacrifice them.

Two people walking near IGMH today

Around 5:30pm near IGMH I waited on my Wave 100 for a friend. Golden light rays of the setting sun reflected off the gray pavements of Male' lighting up the dust from the ongoing traffic when my gaze focused on two elderly men in their late 40s walking towards me. They were engaged in a viscous conversation. One person was wearing a checkered gray and black short-sleeved shirt untucked and a dark brown trouser. The other a red t-shirt and a similar trouser. Their clothes looked reasonably worn out and desaturated possibly due to the quality of the materials, the detergent (or no detergent) the purity of water used for washing them and extended periods of exposure to bright sunlight. They were both engaged in each other deeply. From the few words I heard it seemed like a conversation about another person who lives with them.

They went past me I had my gazed locked on to them when the guy wearing the checkered shirt stopped in front of a house with a blue wooden door and cleared his nose with one swift motion of the thumb and index finger of his right hand. The mucus that came out was thrown near the blue door. The conversation continued with it's flow and the two people walked on.

My friend came out and we left off on the Wave like a wave.

Experience of coming out from Shiyam's House in Maafannu, Male', Maldives

At 12:30am I came out of Shiyam's house with my friend. Shiyam's house is in an alleyway inside a small lane (goalhi) in Maafannu. Shiyaam lives on the 2nd floor of the furthest house from the 4 houses in the alleyway. The alleyway was created when the 1000sq house of Shiyam's land owner's grandma was sliced into 4 pieces (excluding the area of the road) to divide among the very competitive siblings who were able to build 4 bread slice like towers on each piece of the land they inherited. Shiyam is just renting a room (with attached toilet) there.

As I came out from the Alleyway onto the road I heard two people speaking. Sounded like very serious conversation. But in a Hindish kind of foreign language. As the conversation went further the music of suspense was added. At that point I realized that it must be a movie. The sound was coming from a Store Room (Godown). A building made with metal roofing sheets covering the walls and the roofs. It gets really hot in the afternoons in these buildings. But traditionally these were made to store non-perishable goods by businesses and the government. But why would these commodities be watching a movie? I don't understand. There was a little window like opening to the outside. I saw two Kondu-Kendi (under shirts) and one blue men's briefs hung on a red nylon rope.

Then I heard the phone ringing. Sounded like it's coming from the movie due to the ringtone. I heard the voice of a person talking on the phone. And the voice came closer and closer to me. From the window I saw a human holding a Nokia phone which is sold for RF 650 from Dhiraagu (with 7 days warranty). He was speaking in a Hindish kind of language too. He seemed like a malnourished young adult from either Bangladesh or India.

And then I raced off on my friend's Honda Wave 100s.

I Am A Disco Dancer

"Disco Dancer" is the first film I ever watched. It was the only film I was able to watch until Rasheed was banished to our island in late eighties. Rasheed brought many films with him and a TV and a VCP (Video Cassette Player). VCDs and DVDs was not invented in Maldives those days. When Dr. Razee's family visited our island for a holiday they brought Disco Dancer film. We watched it through the window of the house they were staying in. They watched it every night. And I watched it every night. First few days outside. And then they knew that we were watching it so they let us in to the fenda to watch. By the time they left the island I have learned some Hindi and on top of that I became a Disco Dancer.

Me, Kaasim, Juneydhey and Rishfa were very young. We tried to dance like Mithun every day. We held a competition. Zubeyru was able to play the boduberu with Disco Dancer beats. I with my Mundu on top of my head dance with my not so long legs throwing to air like Mithun Chakarubothy. I won the competition. After that for few years they called me Disco Dancer (nickname Disco Dancer-tey). Kaasim was the runner up.

When growing up in my island Mithun's courage and dance ability was an inspiration to me live my life. And look at me now. I have DJed several parties we held in our kitchen while washing up after dinner. So I'm officially a DJ now. One day I hope to release an Album interneytionaly first.