By Ed Peters
Chillin’ with Zero Cool
A fisherman unloads his catch at Mal? atoll, one
of Maldives’ many coral formations. |
How or why Zero Cool got his nickname
is lost in the annals of history, but a some-what fluid mystique
is part and parcel of Mal?, so who better to show you round the
capital of a country that’s 99.9% water?
So laid-back, it was a wonder he could stand upright. Zero Cool
meandered over shortly after I had disembarked at Jetty One, mildly
culture shocked at being teleported from the blissful sun, sand
and solitude of the Anantara Resort to the biggest metropolis within
500 miles.
Instead of the scary, extrovert persona bubbling with facts and
figures adopted by tour guides the world over, Zero Cool managed
to convey, without saying it in quite so many words, that he happened
to be wandering about and if I wanted to tag along too then he had
no real objection.
Endlessly informative when asked a question, for the rest of the
time he retired behind his reflector shades, comfortingly ignoring
the buzzing of his mobile phone, a Maldivian boulevardier to the
manner born.
Mal? is less than two kilometers square, two meters above sea level,
home to 80,000 souls and refreshingly devoid of must-sees. Rather,
the island must be viewed as a whole, floating like Lemuel Gulliver’s
Leputa in the Maldivian archipelago.
As we strolled its byways and goalhi (short, narrow lanes) nobody
gawked, nobody hassled, nobody catcalled and city life simply unfurled
much as it must have done when Marco Polo or Ibn Battutah passed
by, give or take a few score motor scooters.
Zero Cool did manage to rouse himself enough to indicate the strict
injunction against taking photographs of the National Security Services
Headquarters, which we passed hurriedly on the way to the Grand
Friday Mosque. We entered shoeless to gaze at its marbled halls.
Across the street, the Sultan’s Park is one of the few green spaces
in Mal?, shrouded by centuries-old rain trees and containing the
National Museum. Normally such institutions bristle with high-tech
interpretation, audio-visual whatnots and diversionary souvenir
shops, but here the expo was contained in three musty stories, the
last remnant of the long-deposed sultan’s palace.
Just as interesting as the one-time ruler’s cooking utensils and
the collection of pre-Islamic carvings dug up by Thor Heyerdahl
were the curators, who fairly skittered with glee at the prospect
of having their photo taken, and chattered merrily if not entirely
accurately about the artifacts on display.
A piece of living history stood just a few hundred meters away in
the form of the fish market. The boats, glorious Technicolor affairs
with sweeping prows, docked across the road, and sailfish and tuna
were humped by the hundreds onto the market floor. No ice, no refrigeration,
simply a huddle of buyers who scooped up the catch and bore it off
to be eaten that day.
Zero Cool receded into the background after lunch, so I was left
to wander Mal? without his wraith-like presence, marveling at its
other-worldliness and the picaresque names people chose for their
houses: Starling, Banana Cabin and Aston Villa.
Overcrowding is the greatest problem here and the government is
busily constructing a new city on the nearby atoll called Hulhumal?.
I’m sure it’s going to be a miracle of modern town planning; but
will it embrace the charm that Mal? has in spades? Damn progress!
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