Born in the Blue’s

By: Maasi Haleem
Blue. What is the first thing that comes into your mind when the color blue is mentioned?
For me, it is the place I call home. It is the tiny islands that give way to the clear blue skies and the tranquil blue ocean that stretches for infinity; that literally has no end. Everywhere I look, there is a little bit of blue that I always see.  You know that phrase where people say when you are down, you’re feeling blue? Well I tend to feel blue, when I have been away too long from “blue”.
Blue is the people I have at home, the loveliest of them all. The people who are the dearest to me, the people I call family. The people I can count on for anything. It is those people who would move mountains for me if they could, and whom I would do the same for, in a heartbeat.
Blue is my profound love for the environment. Growing up in a place where we are prone to the worst possible environmental conditions; the possibility of the whole country literally drowning underwater. You can talk to almost anybody from my home, and they would win you over an argument about saving the environment (not kidding!). Blue reminds me of the importance of preserving all the amazing creatures underwater and the natural surroundings we have. I’m telling you, they are nothing less than extraordinary to say the least. The whale sharks, sting rays, coral reefs; it’s a whole new world, you would have to see them yourself to understand what I mean.
Blue is the political unrest that I have grown to witness in the place I call home. With only a population of 393,595 people, it is easy to assume that we would be the most peaceful country. However, that is sadly not the case. People are fighting for power; people have been killed and people made disappear – in most of the cases the reason to it yet unknown. Blue is the bewailing injustice that has been going on for decades that has left people, including me, grappling about how our country will turn out to be in the future.
Even with the downsides and amidst many, many other things, there is so much good in the place, so much more that it can be. Blue is the beautiful tropical mess that I call home.