"How much would you pay for a chain of stolen gold?" My uncle A.Fulhu told me last evening. Stolen gold??? He was waiting with a friend near the artificial beach when he was approached by a "Paatey" (his words) who offered a thick chain of gold for Rf 1000/= and to prove that it was real gold the "Paatey" even hit the coral wall with the chain a few times. "How did you know that it was stolen?", playing the Devil's Advocate, I asked him. "Why else would a young man in his teens try and sell me a gold chain on the road if it wasn't stolen?" he replied. Good question. No reply. I was relieved when he told me that he did not buy it. Whew!
Stolen gold. Stolen mobile phones. Stolen MP3 players. The list goes on. Nothing new about thieving except the scale of it. Ever since I returned, all I heard was about someone being mugged, someone's house being broken into, even someone's dhoni being burgled. And then the same old reply. "they never catch them. Even if they did, they are released the next day".
Is it true? If so, when did we ever come to this? More importantly WHY? For drugs is the usual reply. To feed oneself more likely - feed your drug habit, feed yourself, maybe even to pay a medical bill of a loved one? Perhaps. It is easy to see it happening. We already had three people come to our house begging last week. Each of them had a sob story that would put the stories of the beggars on the streets of Chennai to shame. My wife and three kids are starving, one man said. I lost my job because I had to stay awake with a sick child, another said.
One young woman came with a little child. She was painfully thin but pretty. She wore a faded top and a pair of jeans and her hair was matted and sticky and could do with a good shampooing. The child had a growth on her leg. Even we could see that it would be extremely painful. The woman wanted money so that she could take the little child to the hospital. My mother was about to give her some money when we noticed that the young woman had scars on her hand as if it had been done by a knife or some sharp object like that. There were several lines all parallel to each other. "Wait" my mother told her. "we will make an appointment with the doctor for your child and someone here will go with you both and take care of the bill". By the time we went in, made a call and got an appointment and came out, the young woman had vanished into thin air.
My family was sure that she was an addict and wanted the money to feed her habit. "If we were not there she would have come right into the house and stolen what was there" they were convinced. Are they right? Would she have used her sick child as an excuse to get money off unsuspecting people to buy more drugs? How did she get those scars on her hand? Did she not have anyone else to turn to? If we were not there, would she have stolen whatever she could lay her hands on? Would she be selling it near the beach next? What of her child? What kind of future would that little boy have? Questions after questions which I had no answer to.
Part of me felt angry with myself for not having been able to help her and the child. Part of me felt angry with her for letting herself into this state, although I knew nothing of the "why" she was in that situation in the first place. Part of me felt angry at the system that let her spiral down to what she has become. How many more young lives were to descend into this pit of despair before something is done about the growing problem of drugs and poverty?
Subconsciously I touched the gold chain on my mother's neck. Somehow the gold had lost its glitter for me.
8 comments:
Very good article. (The situation is crumbling day by day. One dare think of a bright future it seems. But, we should not give up hope, and at the same time, we should start to be more active in the positive and productive sense)
Shocking!!! Isn't it. It really hurts me so hard that I can not describe it in words. Ever since I know Maldives (1999), I have seen the cultural value of the society degrading piece by piece right infront of me. As a component of the scoiety, that to with the responsibility of a teacher, I could not do much, despite my commitment and sincerity. The driving force for this social degradation were so strong that it swept away all moral teaching and practices of Maldivian people. I still remember the days when we use to leave our doors unlocked while going to work and later I had to witness a roberry in my own house, when the doors were locked. We need a social rennaisance to conserve the simple Maldivian way of life we use to be proud of.
its true that a lot of our young youths are drug edicts. they go for house to beg money saying stories. and in the night time they go to these house to rob our things.I am also a victim of these robbers, my house was robbed 2 days a go. they took MRF11000/- cash and my mobile phone which is also 11000/-. i did not inform police because i know they will not help us. even if am able to trace my mobile the police will not do anything.
Ce n'est pas seulement triste, mais irréversible secte des gangs motorisés par les drogues et les crimes de leur style de vie temporaire, le grand public est vivant dans un autre monde essayait de répondre aux extrémités et de la politique joue vilain jeu d'écraser les gens à la dernière pièce. Je n'aime pas croire qu'il n'ya aucune possibilité penser chose qui pourrait changer cette situation grave?
My daughter just got graduated from University. She wants to return home but she says it is too dangerous to go.
Very good description of the real situation regarding the drug crisis. Unless a new leadership is in place, I don't think we can fight the problem. As we have seen in the past the drug trafficking is a luctrative and organized activity involving millions in daily sales. Let us try for a change.
the gold wud glitter .. the day we all, as citizens get together and find answers to these 'whys' .. if u really felt bad cause u cudnt help the woman n the lil child, just go out ur door & look around .. u'll see many a helpless ppl .. do wateva u cud do .. even the least .. the day we all did our least, n 'cared', the gold wud glitter again!!!!!
With just one port and one Airport I fail to understand why so little is being done to stop the influx,if we are able to stop a single fire cracker coming in to the country maybe we can at least reduce the import of narcotics by half, Maybe it is intentional to destroy half of the nation's youth for some reason I'd rather not discuss but I think blaming,punishing or even torchering the addicts will not solve the problem. We need something more than a show dog at the Airport if we want to prevent and secure the future of our next generation
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