The Maldives: Introducing Malè

February 1, 2010

As the plane approached Malè International Airport it seemed as though it would land in the water itself when suddenly the runway appeared from almost within the sea...

The waters here are so blue in every possible shade – sky blue, sea blue, deep ocean blue, azure, turquoise, aquamarine, sea green, jade, teale, sapphire blue, blue green. The shallower the water the lighter it is in color, with little black fish darting around just under its transparent surface. The dhoni or the water taxi carried us from the airport - which is essentially only an island with a runway and the terminal - to the city island of Malè about half a mile away. Even close to the jetty the waters were crystal clear and an amazing pale pearly turquoise in color.

The Maldives as a tropical archipelago of nearly 1200 islands is spectacular, and Malè as its capital is a bustling city – all 2 square km of this island can be described as small, new, old, busy, crowded. The streets are narrow, barely allowing two vehicles to pass at a time, and the sidewalks couldn’t be more than 24 inches wide. It’s very urban on a very tiny scale. The streets are cobbled or bricked, and lined with clothing stores, shoe stores, food stores, technology stores, cafes, tea shops, bakeries, tiny restaurants, bookstores, schools, office buildings, national headquarters of various government agencies, residential homes and mosques. People walking everywhere, many cars and many more motorized bikes can be seen on the streets. The narrowness of everything is remarkable – not only of streets and sidewalks but also of buildings, hallways, and staircases. The city is actually like a maze, with streets leading into narrow alleys, many of which are dead-ends. And although the city is so small one ends up driving in a long circuitous way to reach a destination because of the one-way streets and dead-end alleyways. So of course it's easier and faster to walk to your destination. Most women have their heads covered with beautifully embroidered and sequinned scarves called buruga or with the longer black hijab. The language is Dhivehi which is an Indo-Aryan language with a mix of Sinhala, Arabic, Hindi, and Bengali. The script called Thaana is beautiful and aesthetic with tiny neat-looking letters.

The people are friendly and helpful and very conversant in English and even in Hindi. There is more English on the streets here than in Sri Lanka because the medium of instruction in schools is English whereas in Sri Lanka it is Sinhala. The Maldives were never colonized and the underlying currents of colonialism that are so prevalent in India and Sri Lanka are not experienced here.  The Maldives is as Muslim as Sri Lanka is Buddhist and India is Hindu. If the temples in India and the shrines in Sri Lanka were profuse and beautifully constructed, then the mosques in the Maldives are no fewer in number and no less beautiful. My travels have been interesting from the perspective of spirituality and religion as I have tried to understand the influences of Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam on society and schools in each of these three countries – India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

For photos click here.