Woken up by the two-legged water hen’s ruak-ruak call and retiring to bed listening to the moonlit sea’s murmurs, this was the closest I could imagine a paradise to be. Already two sunrises old in this Indian Ocean Island, named Kani, one of the 1,200 islands that make Maldives, I still have this persistent feeling that my surroundings are not real but what dreams are made of:staying in a lagoon suite built on stilts, with a panoramic view of the sea and a terrace

which helps one go snorkeling right at the doorstep or sit on the stairs, legs dangling in sea water, having a cappuccino. For a frazzled urbanite, I think such assumptions are natural, our senses dulled by chaos and cacophony.

“Look down there… wow,” screamed my co-passenger as our plane from Colombo slowly descended at Male airport, on Hulhule island alongside the capital city with its high-rise buildings. From the skies, Kanifinolhu looks like a garden island surrounded by turquoise waters. As the speedboat carrying us arrived at Kani and we were welcomed with bamboo necklaces by our host, I was sceptical as to whether my affair with the sun, the sand and the sea would be a memorable one or not, for I have never been a beach person.

On a cruise, I met up with Ali Adil Mohammed, a Divehi (that’s what Maldivians like to be called after the language they speak) who prefers to visit Thiruvananthapuram every six months than head to his hometown in Addu—the fare being two times more than to India. It is said that when Male, the capital city, got its first car, it had to bring the driver from Addu, for the city was among the first in Maldives to taste development, thanks to it being a British protectorate. Over wine and cheese, Adil tells me that only 198 islands have inhabitants at present; the rest (1,102) of them are on sale. Happy that my wallet carries an international credit card, I dream big! As the sky turns cobalt and the horizon thrusts flickers of lights, Adil brings me back to reality, chiming, “Everything here is imported: from vegetables served in the kitchen to diesel used for power generation.” That is enough to make my ‘shopping for an island’ thought go phoosh! I say to myself: Let me enjoy the plebeian pleasures - sunbathing with a martini, shooting pictures, snorkeling or even boating probably.

Visiting Maldives, with a democratic government at the helm after a three-decade-long dictatorship, is a different experience altogether, evident as you interact with the locals. People have hopes from Mohamed Nasheed, the new president, a poet and a political prisoner who spent six years in the jails of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, making him Asia’s longest serving leader. With a new constitution, a new parliament, a supreme court and promises to erase the drug menace which bedevils the youth, Maldives is on a high right now.

Like elsewhere, Hindi movies are popular here too, and every local has his favourite Bollywood moment. Like Hamid, our sailing instructor, pushing the inflated boat towards the turquoise waters says, “Sanjay Dutt was here and I like Salman a lot.” Locals are generally mistaken to be Indians, as we share the same genes and skin colour. In fact, the first settlers, it is generally believed, were Dravidian and Sinhalese from southern India and Sri Lanka who arrived in the fourth and fifth centuries BC. In the 12th century AD, sailors from East Africa and Arab countries joined the settlers. Today, the Divehi ethnic identity is a blend of these cultures, reinforced by religion and language. Unlike Mauritius, its immediate neighbour, Maldives happens to be an Islamic state.