Seventy-two Reasons

Some months back, during a short vacation I took to visit some islands with my family, I met a married couple that was going through a really tough time in their marriage – or to be more accurate, as they themselves said: ‘varifashah araafa’. I guess there are good reasons and bad reason why couples breakup or get divorced but I found the reason to be quite funny in this particular case. I’m no religious scholar (why does that sound like an oxymoron?) so I have no idea how religiously or legally sound the reason was. I’ll leave the judging to people who do that for a living and just relay what they told me.

Mariyam and Moosa (obviously not their real names coz quite honestly, I really can’t recall their names anymore) were in their late fifties and had been married for around 30 years when I met them. Moosa owned a small shop in the island and, judging from how spacious and modern his house looked, seemed to be quite well off. I’ll skip over most of the boring details about how I met them and go straight to the point. The point being that despite the outward appearance of a happy and content family, Mariyam had tried to get a divorce from Moosa, failed, and was still seeking to end their marriage.

She told me that she had gone to Court once to get the divorce but that the Judge (or whatever) had thrown the case out. At first she wouldn’t tell me the reason she wanted to get divorced. I guess she was ok with telling a total stranger about her domestic problems but drew the line when it came to explaining her reasoning. That’s what I thought at first. Eventually I managed, with some help from the strangely jolly and snickering husband, to get the whole story.

Mariyam had always been a religious woman, not in the extremist sense way but she had the basics down: buruga (not the ninja garb), prayed five times a day, recited the Quran, gave to the poor, the works. Her husband on the other hand was very lax in his religious duties and tended to be more business-oriented. For years Mariyam had tried in vain to get Moosa to take some interest in saving his soul and keep it from entering eternal damnation in hell.

Amusingly, she told me that she would have even settled for a Friday prayer every now and then.

After the tsunami hit the Maldives some years ago, men from the Brotherhood of the Lengthy Beards and Truncated Trousers visited the island, seizing the moment and successfully converting many over to their fashion sensibilities with their tried and tested fear-mongering techniques. Moosa and Mariyam had however been immune to their charms for some reason at the time, but unknown to Mariyam, Moosa had struck up a friendship with one of the bearded desert men and continued to keep in touch with the guy long after the Brotherhood had left the island in search of greener pastures.

That was some background info about the couple for those of you who might have wondered about their history. One more thing you have to understand before we move on. I could be wrong, but it seemed to me that Mariyam was absolutely smitten with Moosa. I mean totally devoted and possibly even unconditionally in love with the guy. It was obvious that she had deep feelings for him even thought it was Mariyam that wanted the divorce. Feel free to chime in with more clichéd lovey-dovey stuff to press the point home. Don’t you just love conflicted characters? Moving on.

Several years later, Mariyam was delighted beyond words when early one fine morning, Moosa pulled on a skull cap and made a beeline to the mosque just as she woke up for her morning prayers. From that day on Moosa was, as far as most people were concerned, the perfect Muslim. Following the abrupt change, the couple made one Hajj pilgrimage followed quickly by plans for another pilgrimage just to confirm reservations at their destinations in the afterlife. Sounds like this was as good as it would get, right? Yeah. At this point I had to ask, “so what the heck went wrong?”

What went wrong was that Mariyam couldn’t control her curiosity about what had made Moosa change into a religious powerhouse overnight. And she continued to ask and pester him to explain the sudden transformation. She just wouldn’t let up; such was her curiosity. Moosa held back against the onslaught for a long time but eventually she wore him down and he relented.

Apparently his dalliance with the desert Brother, who had visited the island after the tsunami, had blossomed into a full-blown bromance and he had been invited to join their book club where they read, translated, discussed and dissected a lot of ancient poetry and debated the validity of numerous historical anecdotes. Anyway, during one of these book discussions Moosa experienced an epiphany of sorts after hearing the translation of one such anecdote. I can’t remember the exact verse and phrase, but it was something about jewel-encrusted palaces and a harem filled to the brim with young nubile ladies whose only desire was to please you. I don’t want to go into too much detail so follow the link to get the gist of it.

Being the honest man that he was, Moosa had told his wife quite truthfully the reason he had decided to become a devout believer. Surprisingly, to Moosa at least, the reason didn’t go down too well with Mariyam. Apparently she had her own plans for the afterlife and it didn’t include watching her husband’s eternally stiff soldier repeatedly conquering 72 perpetually virgin territories all day long. There was of course more to the story then this and the debate went on for quite a bit but I believe this was the basis of their argument and the underlying reason Mariyam wanted the divorce. You can call her silly, religiously ignorant or whatever but it occurs to me that she must have actually felt quite cheated when the love of her life, her husband, revealed the true reasons behind his makeover.

Sex sells, you can’t deny it (well, you can but you’d be wrong) and the most interesting thing is that most times it’s even more effective than the fear of eternal torment. I doubt Moosa was the first, and he most certainly won’t be the last, to make such a drastic changes to his principles and beliefs for the singularly enticing promise of an eternal orgy.

 

A Matter of Imagination

Either I’m getting too old to really enjoy PC games or the games have become a lot less interesting lately.

Back in the days when Sierra and Roberta Williams ruled the gaming world (or at least it seemed that way to us in Male’) with the King’s Quest series, and Al Lowe’s Leisure Suit Larry series was a must-play game for every teenage boy, the games and the graphics might have seemed like crap to anyone used to the spectacular 3D graphics of today but in a way I think the blocky 2D graphics actually made things more fun back then. Maybe because imagination had to play a huge part in order to compensate for the lack of stellar graphics. 

I remember being amazed by the graphics in King’s Quest 5 and then being completely blown away by the 3D-animated intro for King’s Quest 6! The only thing I could compare it to back then was the ballroom dance scene in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast when the camera swoops down from the chandelier to the ballroom dance floor. The first Role Playing Game I ever played was Betrayal at Krondor, and even back then it wasn’t much to look at, but the gameplay and story was so involving that the parts of the game that I recall now seem to me to be more real than some memories from my actual childhood. The graphics of Betrayal at Krondor seem, in my memory, to be better than the visuals of the latest 3D games available now. I was actually rudely shocked recently when I saw some screen captures of the game and realised that it looked so much worse than I recalled the game to be. Such was the overall experience of playing the game back then.

These days you don’t have to use your imagination much when playing a game since the graphics are so amazing they really leave no room for imagining; in most cases the graphics are far more spectacular than what you could have probably imagined. Controls and interacting with the games have evolved to such an extent that the mouse and keyboard feels like an extension of your arm in the game world. No longer do you have to type commands like “open door” or “pick up rope” to get your character to do things.

I remember a stage in Leisure Suit Larry where you were required to put some bars of soaps into a bra to disguise Larry as a woman to get past a spy. The whole game-playing gang got together at a friend’s house for days to brainstorm a solution and we tried every combination possible (including using a hex-editor on the game executable file to see if we could find a clue in there) but in the end it was the simple “put soaps in bra” that did the trick. Our mistake was that we had never thought of using the plural form of the word ‘soap’. Well, the Internet and downloadable walkthroughs has solved that problem. It’s probably impossible get stuck in a game these days.

Anyway, I was going to rant about how I don’t enjoy playing games that much anymore. The last game I really enjoyed playing was The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, and the other games I really want to play require a heck of a lot more powerful PC and graphic card than what I have. I can’t play games with a joystick so Play Stations and X-Boxes are out. Wii is really fun but I’m the kind of guy who needs a keyboard and mouse if I really want to enjoy a game. Aside from that, I’ve sadly realised recently that I really don’t have the time to spend on games anymore. There’s just too much work and other stuff that occupies me. But maybe if something like the original Myst or Riven came around again, I would probably be willing to invest some time in a game again.

 

Moving On…

It’s been a few days since the former President’s body was brought to Maldives and buried with all the fanfare reserved for a once-President. From the moment I heard the news of his death I’ve felt like I was watching a tennis match.

On one side were those who considered President Nasir to be a dictator and tyrant, directly responsible for the death of a large number of Maldivians and only a step behind (or forward, depending on who you ask) Maumoon in ruthlessness and hunger for power. On the other side were the people who seemed to think he was the best thing that had happened to the country. So… there were people who thought he was great and almost an equal number of people who thought he was nothing but a big tyrant. There were even those who thought he was a bit of both: a great big tyrant!

Despite the fact that he was a former President I didn’t feel compelled to go and take a look at his dead body while it was displayed for the public inside the Presidential Palace. It was nothing personal since I really felt nothing against him; I was just not interested and there more immediate things that required my attention. The thought of checking out the much hyped about “wonders” inside the Presidential Palace was a big draw, I admit, but in the end it wasn’t enough.

Considering the amount of people who went to see the body, I’m inclined to think there were those who went there just to brag about having seen a dead president, some who genuinely wanted to pay their last respects to a person they considered to be great, some who just wanted to grab the chance to enter the Presidential Palace and those who just wanted to make sure that Nasir really was dead.

Even on the MVBlogs it was the same. There were several blogs that praised him while an equal amount seemed to say good riddance to bad rubbish. The media however seemed entirely focused on portraying the former President in a good light. Every positive aspect of the development of Maldives has now more or less attributed to him, leaving ex-President Maumoon with egg on his face.

There were some who were on the fence too. I think I could be counted among those. Some of my friends hate Nasir because of the Havaru Thinadhoo incident. Those friends whose relatives were directly affected by the incident hate Nasir with a vengeance. To me Nasir was a non-entity. Maumoon came into power long before I was old enough to even understand what a Government was. None of my family members were affected either way (as far as I know) by the change in Government and so I wasn’t raised in an environment where people discussed the heinous crimes said to have been committed by Nasir. Even if it was discussed, I have no recollection of it.

While rummaging through the Dhivehi book shelves at the old National Library I saw many issues of “Aabaaru” (I think it was called) which had cartoons that depicted Nasir as a demon intent on amassing as much wealth as he could before Maumoon the Saviour sent him packing. For many years during my childhood I thought Nasir was a fictional monster, like Foolhu Dhigu Handi or Rannamaari (ok, so they seemed pretty real at the time). Then later, during Social Studies classes in school, I did learn some of the history of Maldives including the bit that the President who was in power before Maumoon was residing in Singapore — but to me that was nothing more than a fact to memorize to ensure an extra mark on my exams.

During the last few days I’ve heard more about how great and how evil Nasir was than I want to know and that has really left me conflicted. So will the real Nasir please stand up? Oh wait. Too late.

 

Final Round: Mau VS Anni

It’s the final day of campaigning and I can’t help wondering how things will turn out in two days time. I’m excited, and at the same time a little cautious, at the thought of what changes Maldives would go through if Maumoon is voted out. It’s a big ‘if’ though.

As the first round of the election proved, not everyone wants a president who was already extremely old when some pharaoh came up with the idea to build pyramids. Watching our geriatric leader talk about the new heights that he’s going to take the country to and the tough decisions that the next president will likely have to make, I can’t help but wonder what makes him so sure that he’s even going to be around in a few years time. Sure he’s managed to make it this far (a remarkable achievement, I’m sure) but how much longer can he hold out against the relentless flow of time? He’s likely to just keel over any day now and doctors will find that, no matter the circumstances surrounding his death, he had died of extreme old age. How’s he gonna make tough decisions about the future if he ain’t gonna be in it?

As Chris Rock says “I don’t want a president with a Bucket List!”

I have no doubt that, given the current state of Maldives, Anni has a very good chance of beating Maumoon in a free and fair election. But that’s the thing, right? Is it going to be a free and fair election? From what we’ve seen in the past I have a suspicion that Maumoon is going to win the election with over a 60% majority, regardless of who gets the most votes.

What do you think?

 

A Sneak Peek into Aneh Dhivehiraajje

“So who did you vote for in the first round?”

The question came from a close friend whose PC I was trying to disinfect from a whole plethora of nasty viruses and malware. Usually I would respond to that question with some idiotic joke about iBra and how his presidency would revolutionize the lingerie industry. But this time, possibly because I was a little preoccupied with trying to find a particularly nasty malware, I sort of automatically responded with the truth.

“The good doctor got my vote that time,” I said.

“Really? Doctor Jameela? The she-man? Why?”

“Why not? Seemed like the best choice to me and that’s reason enough to vote for him. Who did you vote for?”

“Maumoon, of course!” he said.

“But of course; you can’t imagine anyone else being president can you?”

“That’s because no one else is qualified,” he responded promptly. “What about in the runoff?”

“I’m undecided at the moment,” I said. “But I’m leaning towards Anni, much as I’d hate to have a moronic clown as a president, the alternative is worse.”

“Ah, but you’re wrong there!”

“Am I?”

“Yessss!!! Let me give you a sneak peek into Aneh Dhivehiraajje and then you will see that our salvation can only come if Maumoon remains as President.”

“Sure, go ahead,” I said. “Knock yourself out. I’m almost done with your PC anyway.”

“Hmmm… so let’s say Anni becomes president,” he began in a soft voice. “Everyone knows that he smokes weed and probably does more hardcore drugs as well, which explains his bloodshot eyes and squeaky, cracked voice. He drinks alcohol and it’s no secret that many of his relatives aren’t even Muslim. So you have to agree that in Anni’s Aneh Dhivehiraajje most of our youth will be intoxicated and high on drugs. As a result crime will skyrocket, and national productivity will plunge. Since he’s not a Muslim he would allow people of other religions to go ahead and spread their filthy beliefs throughout the country. Anarchy is sure to follow and total chaos will reign. Most of the businessmen are behind him so almost all of the country’s wealth will be funneled into their bank accounts and nationwide poverty will be unavoidable. And let’s not even talk about the economy! Adhaalath Party is also behind him and no doubt that means religious fundamentalism will have a very strong foothold in the country. Women will be forced to wear those black, full-body veils and all their rights will be for naught! Maldives will become another Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia!”

By then I had begun ignoring the alert messages flashing on the computer monitor and given my full attention to my friend. His voice had become somewhat louder by the end of his monologue.

“Hmmm… daimn! That’s quite a dystopian future you’ve envisioned for Aneh Dhivehiraajje.” I finally said, deciding to ignore the numerous contradictions he had presented during his… er, vision.

“You know I am right! You aren’t stupid.” he said.

“Well, see… the thing is,” I tried to try and make him understand one last time. “What you’ve envisioned for the future is almost, if not exactly, the same as our present. What you’ve just said very accurately describes the state of Maldives right now. And quite surprisingly, we got here with Maumoon as our benevolent and fearless leader.”

My friend stopped. He opened his mouth to say something and then closed it.

“You know I am right!” I told him. “And since we already are living in your version of Aneh Dhivehiraajje, I’m thinking I’ll go vote for change and see if we could get back to our Maldives somehow. It’s worth taking the chance, right?”

 

The Extra Boob

After three weeks in the Garden of Eden, God came to visit Eve.

“So, how is everything going?” God inquired.

“It is all so beautiful, God,” she replied. “The sunrises and sunsets are breathtaking. The smells, the sights, everything is wonderful. But I have just one problem. It’s these breasts you have given me. The middle one pushes the other two out and I am constantly knocking them with my arms, catching them on branches and snagging them on bushes. They are a real pain,” Eve reported.

And Eve went on to tell God that since many other parts of her body came in pairs, such as her limbs, eyes, ears, etc, she felt that having only two breasts might leave her body more “symmetrically balanced,” as she put it.

“That is a fair point,” God replied. “But it was my first shot at this, you know. I gave the animals six breasts, so I figured that you needed only half of those, but I see that you are right. I will fix it up right away.” And God reached down, removed the middle breast and tossed it into the bushes.

Three weeks passed and God once again visited Eve in the Garden of Eden. “Well, Eve, how is my favourite creation?”

“Just fantastic,” she replied. “But for one oversight on your part: You see all the animals are paired off. The ewe has a ram and the cow has her bull. All the animals have a mate except me. I feel so alone.”

God thought for a moment and said: “You know, Eve, you are right. How could I have overlooked this? You do need a mate and I will immediately create a man from a part of you. Now let’s see, where did I put that useless boob…?”

Now: doesn’t that make more sense than all that crap about the rib or thigh?

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Came across this ‘joke’ while Stumbling. I thought this was a worthwhile addition to all those lovely  myths about the creation of man… heheheh

 

Ripped!

I should have known this would happen eventually when I started uploading my digital paintings and photos to DeviantArt, but it still came as somewhat of a shock. What happened is that someone’s “stolen” one of my works on DA and used part of it on some Rapidshare links forum’s banner graphic without my permission. I got the heads-up from a friend on DA who just sent a simple message saying “check this link”. At first I didn’t realise what he was trying to show to me but the photo at the top did look a little familiar. It took a few seconds for realization to dawn.

Link to the forum

http://www.hotspiceworld.com/forums/

Here is a low-res version of my original painting.

Some time back, when I was very active on DA, several of my DA friends were very upset when their artworks were stolen from DA and put up on Photobucket, sometimes for sale even. It had become quite a big problem for DA users. I was kinda expecting some of my works to end up on Photobucket and wondering how I would react to it but the situation never came about (as far as I know). Probably coz my work isn’t good enough to steal.

Anyway, having finally experienced getting my work used by someone else for their own purposes without my permission, I have to admit that at first I felt quite flattered, probably because it felt good to find out that someone thought my work was actually good enough to steal. But after the initial rush, I’m not feeling too good about it. The feeling isn’t particularly pleasant. ugh!