Things Mauritian

My dear Billy, I have very good news for you. You were 34 years old when the Dutch landed haphazardly on our shores in 1598, tossed and driven by an anti-cyclone. Well, that’s not the piece of news that I want to communicate to you yet. Those “tempest-tost” Dutch sailors must have been under the bene-malefic influence of a spell cast by some sweet-and-sour witch who meant to take a mild revenge by getting their ships entangled in an anti-cyclone in the midst of the Indian Ocean. Or maybe it was their karma – and ours eventually – that led them to our shores. Whatever the case, my dear Billy, it so happened that five ships out of the fleet of eight that were undertaking a voyage across the Indian Ocean got separated, as if by magic, from the three others and were blown by the winds to our shores. These ships were under the command of Vice Admiral Wybrandt van Warwyck and on September 17, reached this island which was nobody’s island at that time but was going to become theirs soon and ours now. The following day, they dispatched a few sailors in two boats for scouting and the latter were warmly welcomed by nature in a good harbour, very well enclosed, with a capacity to berth 50 vessels at a time in full protection against the winds. Later, when the sick who were on board recovered their health on land, they concluded that the country, especially its atmosphere, was very safe and sane. They also found birds, fish and tortoises in plenty for their famished stomachs. All this to tell you, my dear Billy, that the adorable people of present-day Mauritius have been bequeathed their sense of hospitality, their smile and their perception of a warm welcome from the land in which they live and to which they lure over a million curious tourists every year. Now for the good news. Through a centuries-old process of development and progress and profuse imitation, Mauritius has become like a foreign, advanced country. This place now has a perverted sense of hospitality, its people wear crocodile smiles as others shed crocodile tears, and their welcome is more spurious than warm. We are as genuine today as the Ralph Lauren shirts we shamelessly sell to gullible tourists and the pirated CDs we buy in the main streets of Port Louis and elsewhere. And our sense of values, my dear Billy, is gauged according to our outward appearance. We are judged by the price of the shoes we have on our feet or the shirt we are wearing. If we don’t have a car, we must have the ability and fortitude to assimilate the jeers of our peers. Qualities like love, honesty, charity are commodities that still exist, but they are always expected from others. We derive infinitely greater pleasure in being loved that in loving, except in cases where the love-matter concerns money, comfort, luxury, cheating and doing harm to others. Then we apply love in its active form. These traits have been acquired after long years of painful training and apprenticeship from the Western schools. This is a tradition that we have amassed as part of our cultural heritage from those countries through the kind courtesy of the former owners of the place. It has also been brought back in the luggage of those of us who have spent a few years in those countries as students, or through Mauritians settled there who come to the motherland from time to time. You will be amused to learn, my dear Billy, that as long as they are studying in foreign countries, our boys and girls are very nostalgic about home food – Kraft Cheddar, Mine Apollo, Carri Zack, Rougaille poisson sale and the rest. But as soon they return to the fold, these natives cannot live without Camembert, fish ‘n’chips, smoked salmon etc. Nor are we lagging behind in the other fields, my dear Billy. The rate at which we are slitting the throats, bowels, guts and other parts of the bodies of our fellow citizens and citizens of other countries has achieved international proportions. And we are not here talking of finger choppers or wrist hewers. Those who thought the death squad had been abolished have had to revise their opinion fast. Until recently, we had only seen the mafia in action in the movies, or read about their underworld and underground activities in the media. Today that, too, has been settled. The mafia has settled down within our own shores, and we don’t have to feel small any more. You will notice, my dear Billy that I am not here dealing with the other types of doubtful and obscure activities in which our countrymen and women are deeply and actively involving themselves. That does in no way mean that they don’t exist. Our politicians have also come of age. They have learnt their lessons very well. Where in the past they used to learn their lessons from manuals like “How to Influence People and Win Elections” and “How to Win Elections and Work for the People”, they are today themselves writing best-sellers like “How to Fool People and Win Elections” or “Taking the Public for a Ride” of still “How to Get Rich Quick”. Smile the beloved parasite! How do you find that as a title for a new book, my dear Billy?