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DHEVI: A HAUNTING LEAP FORWARD FOR DHIVEHI CINEMA

I had the privilege of attending a private screening of the much-anticipated Dhivehi film Dhevi, ahead of its official release on 26 September.

After watching it, I could not simply wait for the release, write a conventional review and move on.

Because this is more than a review.

This is what I felt while watching it.

To begin with, Dhevi has one of the tensest openings I have seen in a Dhivehi film—and, strangely enough, it is introduced by a hen and her chicks.

I will not reveal what happens.

Let us just say that filmmakers have spent years using dark corridors, abandoned houses and creaking doors to frighten audiences. Dhevi begins by proving that even a perfectly innocent hen can carry us towards dread.

The opening hooked me from left, right and centre.

Anatomically impossible, perhaps—but that is how firmly it held me.

From that moment, the film makes its intentions clear. It is not here merely to make us jump. It wants to build a world, place us inside it and slowly remove every feeling of safety.

At its heart, Dhevi tells the story of twin sisters whose lives are overtaken by something far more sinister than one can imagine.

What begins with unease gradually tightens into a chain of terrifying events, each one drawing the sisters deeper into something they cannot easily escape. The horror continues to rise until the story arrives at a rousing and emotionally charged conclusion.

That is all I will say about the plot.

This is a film best experienced without someone walking ahead of you with a torch and warning you about what may be waiting in the darkness.

Superstar Mariyam Azza plays the twin sisters, Maahi and Maashi, while also serving as a producer for the first time.

Either responsibility would have been demanding enough. Azza chose both—apparently because sleeping peacefully is overrated.

I could not take my eyes off her.

That was true not only because of the physical demands of playing two roles, but because of the complete command she has over both characters. Through her body language, expressions, voice, movement and emotional rhythm, she creates two distinctly different women.

She does not merely change her clothes or appearance and expect the audience to complete the illusion. She changes her entire presence.

Even when the sisters occupy the same frame, we never feel as though we are watching an actress performing opposite herself. We believe that two separate individuals are sharing that space.

Physically, Azza is astonishing. Every movement appears carefully designed for the character she is playing. As an actress, she is equally remarkable. Her eyes carry fear, confusion, pain and strength—sometimes before a single word is spoken.

I watched her in awe.

These performances are miles apart from those in her recent blockbusters. There is no attempt to repeat what has worked for her before. She enters a darker and emotionally heavier space, then gives us two extraordinary performances in the same film.

As a first-time producer, Azza has also chosen an unusually ambitious project. Dhevi does not feel like a safe production created merely to carry her name. It feels like the work of someone prepared to challenge herself, her team and even the technical boundaries of Dhivehi cinema.

Mariyam Azza is not merely impressive in Dhevi.

She is extraordinary.

The supporting cast gives the film the strength it needs.

Sharaf Abdulla, Ismail Rasheed, Mohamed Manik, Ahmed Saeed and Rishmy Rameez deliver convincing performances, grounding the supernatural events in recognisable human emotions. Newcomer Hamdhaan also makes a confident impression, holding his own among experienced actors.

Then there is the late Ahmed Nimal.

He appears in a cameo in what would become his final film role.

Seeing him on the screen was bittersweet. There was happiness in witnessing him perform once more, but also sadness in knowing that this would be the last time a new performance of his would greet us from the screen.

For a moment, the horror gives way to remembrance.

Written by upcoming writer Shahudha Mahmood and director Sandy, the screenplay carefully establishes its atmosphere before allowing the horror to take control.

The writing understands that suspense comes from waiting—from sensing that something is approaching without knowing when, how or from where it will arrive.

Rather than treating the unfolding events as a convenient machine for producing frightening scenes, the writers build a human story around the people trapped inside it. That emotional foundation gives the horror its weight.

The screenplay steadily raises the tension and carries the story towards its powerful conclusion without revealing its hand too early.

Abdulla Muaz (Bhaai) and Rishmy Rameez’s crisp editing gives the narrative a well-balanced pace. The film knows when to let a moment breathe and when to tighten its grip. Horror can become exhausting when every scene screams for attention. Bhaai and Rishmy allow the quieter moments enough space, making the frightening ones strike even harder.

Amid the mounting dread, I enjoyed the welcome breather offered by a modern rendition of legendary singer Naifaru Dhohokko’s Funhaa Loabi, performed by Anji with infectious energy and effortless moves.

It is difficult to believe that Dhevi is Sandy’s first film as a director. He directs it as though he has been calling the shots for years.

His confidence lies in his control. Performances, production design, cinematography, editing and visual effects all belong to the same cinematic world.

Of course, no director creates such an ambitious film alone. Sandy received wholehearted support from his team—particularly Bhaai and the visual-effects artists, whose technical brilliance helped him attempt things rarely seen in Maldivian cinema.

And now we come to the technical highlight of Dhevi: its visual effects.

Created by Bhaai, Vishal Zaky and Shamwyl Shareef, the visual effects contain moments that will genuinely leave audiences wondering how they were achieved.

The seamless presentation of Azza’s dual role is something I cannot recall seeing attempted with this level of complexity and polish in Maldivian cinema.

The sisters do not merely stand on opposite sides of a conveniently divided frame. They exist within the same physical world. They move through shared spaces, react to each other and interact with such precision that the technical construction becomes invisible.

And that invisibility is the achievement.

Creating a convincing dual performance requires far more than placing two images together. The eye-lines must match. The timing must be exact. Lighting, perspective, movement, shadows and physical distance must remain believable. Above all, the emotional performance on one side must feel alive to the performance on the other.

If even one element fails, we see the trick.

In Dhevi, we see the sisters.

Some effects proudly announce themselves, giving the film moments of visual scale and spectacle. Others work quietly beneath the surface, supporting scenes without asking the audience to admire the machinery behind them. Both kinds are handled with remarkable confidence.

The effects are not included merely to show us what the team can do. They serve the story, strengthen the horror and make Azza’s two performances possible.

That distinction matters.

Visual effects are most powerful when they stop feeling like visual effects. At several points, I found myself forgetting that the woman standing opposite Azza was also Azza.

My mind knew it.

My eyes refused to believe it.

The greatest compliment I can give the visual-effects team is that, after a while, I stopped searching for the trick.

I simply watched the sisters.

And one has to see this film to believe what this team has achieved.

Dhevi is not merely a successful horror film. It is evidence of what Dhivehi cinema can accomplish when ambition is supported by skill, patience and people willing to move beyond familiar limits.

It gives Mariyam Azza two extraordinary performances in one film. It announces Sandy as a director who already appears fully in command of his craft. It gives Shahudha Mahmood another strong step forward as a writer. It also gives us one final glimpse of the late Ahmed Nimal—an unexpected and bittersweet gift.

I walked into that private screening expecting to watch a much-anticipated Dhivehi horror film.

I walked out feeling immensely proud of the entire team behind Dhevi for bringing our cinema to a level of technical brilliance that genuinely surprised me.

Every department has contributed to that achievement. But the brilliance of Bhaai and his visual-effects team deserves to be celebrated. They have not merely created impressive images. They have helped turn an ambitious idea into something believable, seamless and technically remarkable.

Their work allows the film to dream beyond the limitations normally associated with our industry—and then places that dream convincingly on the screen.

For me, that may be Dhevi’s greatest achievement.

It does not ask us to admire it simply because it is a Maldivian film.

It gives us every reason to admire it because it is a technically brilliant film.

And that made me very proud.

TWO YEARS TO FADE OUT

Two years ago, I began writing a screenplay.

For now, let us simply call it Untitled.

I had the central idea. I knew what I wanted the screenplay to say, and I thought I knew the road it would take to get there.

Then my producer called.

He had recently watched a local film and felt that parts of my story had some similarities to it.

That call took the wind out of me.

I told him I needed time. I would return to the outline, take the story apart and rebuild it—while preserving the heart of what I had originally set out to write.

That sounded very professional.

What followed was anything but.

There were days when I sat in front of my laptop and stared at the screen, unable to write a single word. A week might pass before I managed one line. Sometimes two. On particularly productive days, I may even have moved a comma.

And that was how it continued for more than a year.

I outlined. I abandoned the outline. I tried another direction. I questioned it. I returned to the beginning. Some ideas survived every version. Others disappeared after weeks of work because they belonged to a different screenplay—not this one.

There was procrastination too. I would love to blame the laptop, the weather or some mysterious failure of artistic alignment. But the laptop was innocent.

At other times, I tried to squeeze every last drop from whatever creative juice remained in me. Unfortunately, creativity is not toothpaste. The harder you squeeze, the less cooperative it becomes.

Through all this, my producer never pressured me.

He assured me that I did not need to rush. He was not waiting for something quick. He was waiting for something good.

That patience gave the screenplay room to breathe. More importantly, it gave me room to fail, reconsider and begin again.

Then, at the beginning of this year, something changed.

The story began to flow.

Not all at once. Not like some divine waterfall pouring perfectly formatted scenes onto the page. But the characters started moving again. Images began connecting. Moments that had remained separate for months suddenly found their place beside one another.

I kept outlining and re-outlining.

I moved scenes. Removed them. Brought some back. I stripped away dialogue whenever an image could carry the emotion. I searched for silence where words felt too easy. I planted small visual details early so they could return later with greater meaning.

Gradually, the screenplay found its rhythm.

It became a story told as much through faces, spaces, objects and quiet gestures as through dialogue. It demanded patience from me. It also demanded precision. Every scene had to earn its place. Every spoken line had to justify breaking the silence.

Perhaps that is why this screenplay took so long.

Some stories allow themselves to be written.

Others make the writer prove that he deserves them.

This one made me work for every page.

Now, after countless outlines, discarded scenes, rewritten moments and long stretches of doubt, I have finally reached the end.

And strangely, looking back, I do not resent the difficult days. The screenplay needed those false starts. It needed the silence. It may even have needed those weeks when all I could write was a single line.

Because the screenplay I have completed is not the one I began two years ago.

I believe it is better.

It is one of the most visually driven screenplays I have written and, without revealing anything about its story, also one of the most emotionally demanding. More importantly, it has become one of the most satisfying screenplays I have written so far.

A huge thank-you to my producer for giving me something increasingly rare in this business:

Time.

Time to rethink.

Time to doubt.

Time to discover.

Time to write the screenplay this story deserved.

Two years ago, I thought I knew exactly where it was going.

I was wrong.

Thankfully.

THE STRAIGHT MAN

If he were here today, my father, Ahmed Fulhu, would have turned 94.

I still find myself using those two words—would have—as though life made a small mistake that might yet be corrected. As though he is simply late. As though, at any moment, the door might open and the man whose birthday we are remembering will walk in.

But the door remains closed.

So today, I want to open another door: the one that leads back through his life.

He was born Ahmed Yusuf of Ma. Haivakaruge on 1 September 1932, to Yoosuf Adam and Aishath Aboobakuru. Many would later know him as Haivakaru Ahmedfulhu. But before the uniform, the rank and the public service, he was a little boy who lost both his parents when he was about ten.

At ten, a child should still have someone asking whether he has eaten. Someone waiting for him to come home. Someone to tell him that the world may be frightening, but he does not have to face it alone.

My father largely did.

He grew up with the kind of absence that could easily have hardened him. Instead, he became a man others could depend on. Perhaps that was the first great achievement of his life—not that he survived loneliness, but that he did not pass that loneliness on.

He studied at Majeediyya School and became part of the first generation of modern Maldivian footballers. Selected during the time of Mohamed Ameen Didi and trained under Michael de Silva, he played as a goalkeeper. He also played cricket, hockey and military rugby, apparently believing that one sport offered an unreasonable amount of free time.

Goalkeeper seems, in hindsight, the perfect position for him. It requires patience, concentration and the discipline to remain alert even when the action appears to be somewhere else. Those qualities would remain with him long after he left the football field.

On 21 August 1953, just eleven days before his 21st birthday, my father witnessed the mob attack on Mohamed Amin Didi near the Henveiru ferry terminal.

At twenty, he had already seen the country at one of its most painful political turning points. He would live through many more chapters of Maldivian history—not as someone reading about them years later, but as someone who had been there.

On 8 October 1953, less than two months after that incident, he joined the police-military service. He began at the lower ranks and rose through Sergeant Fourth Class, Third Class, Second Class and First Class, eventually becoming Captain—the highest rank at the time.

He served during both Thinadhoo rebellions. He was there through periods of unrest that most of us now encounter only as a few paragraphs in history. For him, they were not paragraphs. They were places, faces, orders, consequences and memories carried home.

When the Investigation Office was introduced on 27 August 1970, he was serving as Deputy Chief. After approximately 24 years in uniform, he retired on 27 December 1978.

This photograph is of him standing beside President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom during the presidential oath-taking in 1978. It records an important public moment. But whenever I look at it, I see something more personal.

I see how straight he stood.

That was not merely military posture. It was the way he tried to live.

Retiring from the military did not mean retiring from service. In different years, he served as Atoll Chief of Mulaku, Faadhippolhu and Addu. While serving in Addu, he requested a proper police-military force for the atoll—a request that helped lead to police-military services being established across the atolls.

He also served as Assistant Under Secretary at the Ministry of Provincial Affairs, Assistant Manager of the Rentals Division, Manager of Central Hospital, Assistant Director General at the Ministry of Information, Arts and Culture, and Director General of the Community Organization Development Council.

Written as a list, these are job titles.

Lived across a lifetime, they were responsibilities. Each one meant people turning to him when something had to be organised, protected, settled or made to work.

History, it seems, had a habit of arriving during my father’s working hours.

On 3 November 1988, when mercenaries attacked Malé, he was managing Central Hospital—the only hospital in the capital at the time. As injured people arrived and the city descended into fear and uncertainty, he extended the hospital’s operations around the clock and brought all available doctors and nurses on duty to treat them.

While fear moved through the streets, he made certain that the place meant to heal people did not stop working.

His actions that day were acknowledged by both the government and the public. But the most important result was simpler: the hospital remained available when a wounded city needed it.

That was public service not as a title, but as action.

He believed in discipline, rules and responsibility. He was honest and transparent, sometimes with the uncompromising firmness of someone who had spent much of his life maintaining order. But firmness did not make him reckless. He preferred negotiation before action. He listened. He waited. He tried to settle matters fairly.

His patience was not weakness.

It was strength under control.

He understood that trust takes years to build and only moments to destroy. So he guarded it—in public service, in his decisions and in the way he lived when nobody was watching.

He also understood that memory must be protected.

On 21 April 2013, his article titled From My Pen: The Military and the Police was published on an MNDF magazine. He wrote about the institutions he had personally seen change: the period when there was no separate police force, the creation of investigative departments in 1960, and the temporary police unit established in 1972 ahead of the Queen’s visit.

He had lived through history.

Then he took the trouble to write it down for those who had not.

Many people assume someone else will remember. My father knew that memory, like duty, requires someone to take responsibility.

His life was not built only around public service. At its centre was his family.

From his first marriage came two children. With my mother, six.

Eight children.

The Captain retired in 1978.

The father never did.

At home, his values did not arrive as grand speeches. They arrived through example. Be honest, especially when honesty is inconvenient. Do not act in anger when patience may still solve the problem. Listen before deciding. Keep your word. Never treat responsibility as privilege.

He had known what it meant to grow up without parents. Yet he spent his adult life building a family large enough to fill every silence childhood had left behind.

The ten-year-old boy who had once been left largely alone became the centre of a family of eight children. Life had taken a home away from him early. He answered by building another.

My father passed away on 5 August 2022 at the age of 89 at 07:33 AM. His funeral prayer was held after Asr at Aasahara Mosque.

He was only 27 days away from his 90th birthday.

That first 1 September after his death felt especially cruel. His birthday arrived exactly when it was supposed to.

He did not.

That is the strange discipline of the calendar. It keeps every appointment even after the people we love can no longer attend. Birthdays return. Anniversaries return. Familiar dates quietly knock on the door and make us feel the absence all over again.

But today, I do not want his absence to become larger than his life.

He was here.

He was the orphaned boy who refused to be defeated by loneliness.

The goalkeeper who stood between danger and the goal.

The twenty-year-old who witnessed one of the country’s most painful political moments.

The officer who rose from the lowest ranks to Captain.

The public servant who carried responsibility from one office and one atoll to another.

The hospital manager who kept the doors open while a wounded city came through them.

The witness who wrote down what he had seen so history would not have to depend entirely on rumour.

The husband.

The father of eight.

Some people leave behind buildings, titles or monuments bearing their names. My father left something quieter: a way of standing in the world.

Stand straight.

Remain calm.

Carry responsibility without turning it into privilege.

On his 94th birthday, I remember not only that he is gone.

I remember that he was here—and throughout his long life, he stood straight.

May Allah forgive his sins, accept his good deeds, fill his grave with light and grant him the highest place in Jannah.

Aameen.

THE MVR100 WALK OF SHAME

Jaywalking, zebra crossings and the magnificent disorder of Malé roads.

Parliament has passed the new Land Transport Bill, and among its many provisions is one that has already attracted public attention: a fine of MVR 100 for crossing the road illegally.

In other words, jaywalking is finally about to become an offence in the Maldives.

This is good news. It is necessary. It is long overdue.

It is also rather like introducing a rule against splashing water while the entire house is flooding.

To be precise, the bill was passed on 26 August with 47 members voting in favour and 12 against. It is not yet law at the time of writing. It must first receive presidential assent, after which it is expected to come into force in 30 days. Article 46 requires the ministry to establish the rules pedestrians must follow, including where and how roads may be crossed. Article 131 then imposes the MVR 100 fine on anyone who crosses in violation of those rules.

So, technically, the state has not merely fined jaywalking. It has announced that it will first define walking properly and then charge us for improvising.

This is entirely reasonable. In a city as crowded as Malé, pedestrians cannot continue crossing wherever inspiration strikes them. A road is not a living room, and reaching the other side is not a spiritual calling that must be answered immediately. When a zebra crossing is nearby, people should use it. When traffic is moving, people should wait. When a child is watching, adults should perhaps avoid demonstrating that road safety is an optional subject.

But any serious discussion of pedestrian responsibility must begin with an awkward academic question: what exactly is a pedestrian expected to do after reaching the zebra crossing?

Pray?

In most countries, the zebra crossing is a recognised part of the road-safety system. It signals that pedestrians have a designated place to cross and that motorists must respond accordingly. In Malé, it often functions as decorative road art. The pedestrian stands beside it. The motorcyclist sees the pedestrian. Their eyes meet. For one brief moment, two citizens participate in a beautiful act of mutual recognition.

Then the motorcyclist accelerates.

Sometimes another vehicle follows. Then another. Eventually, the pedestrian crosses during a gap, not because the zebra crossing protected him, but because traffic briefly became tired of trying to kill him.

The authorities are aware of the problem. In 2025, Police and Malé City Council launched a campaign to paint “LOOK RIGHT” near selected crossings. This was useful advice. In Malé, however, one must also look left, ahead, behind, diagonally and occasionally upward, because the normal geometry of traffic cannot always be trusted.

The new bill is broader than the MVR 100 fine. It introduces a demerit-point system, provides for automatic licence suspension when unpaid traffic fines reach MVR 5,000, proposes a 20-year general lifespan limit for vehicles, and establishes a Greater Malé Transport and Mobility Office. These are serious measures and, on paper, part of a more modern transport framework.

The phrase “on paper” is doing considerable work in that sentence.

Road discipline is not created by legislation alone. It is created through road design, public education, consistent enforcement and a shared belief that rules apply even when no police officer is watching. At present, Malé possesses written rules, painted lines, traffic signs and a highly creative population determined not to be limited by any of them.

Lane discipline, for example, is treated less as a legal obligation and more as a suggestion from a distant relative. A rider may suddenly move into the opposite lane because the correct lane contains three vehicles and patience is apparently a luxury item. The person already travelling lawfully in that lane must then slow down, move aside or achieve immediate enlightenment.

Indicators are equally misunderstood. Their proper function is to communicate an intention before a manoeuvre. In Malé, they are often activated during the turn, after the turn or not at all. The vehicle simply changes direction, leaving everyone else to discover the plot twist in real time.

And then there is the U-turn.

The Maldivian U-turn is not planned. It happens. A motorist remembers that his destination was behind him and immediately invites the entire road to participate in this personal revelation. No warning. No gradual positioning. Just a sudden horizontal act of faith.

If pedestrians are to be fined for crossing roads unpredictably, motorists must be held equally accountable for driving unpredictably. Otherwise, we are not creating road safety. We are merely deciding which group is easier to fine.

Then we come to the pavement—or what urban-planning literature would describe as pedestrian infrastructure and Malé businesses sometimes describe as additional storage.

Walking along certain streets requires the balance of a gymnast, the flexibility of a yoga instructor and the quiet acceptance of a man who has made peace with death. One shop has placed cartons outside. Another has displayed hardware. A motorcycle occupies what remains. A delivery is in progress. Somewhere beneath all this commercial activity, according to municipal records, there may be a pavement.

The pedestrian must step onto the road to continue walking. Once on the road, he may eventually cross it. Under the new system, this could make him an offender.

The logic is exquisite. First, we remove the pedestrian’s safe space. Then we punish him for leaving it.

Police have recently been towing vehicles parked on pavements and pedestrian areas in Hulhumalé, reminding the public that these spaces are legally reserved for those on foot. Similar enforcement has also targeted illegal parking on major roads in Malé. These efforts are welcome, but occasional operations cannot substitute for ordinary, continuous enforcement. A rule enforced for one week and forgotten the next is not a rule. It is an awareness campaign with a towing truck.

There is also a larger principle involved. Road safety is a system of reciprocal duties. The pedestrian must cross responsibly. The motorist must yield where required, remain in the correct lane, signal before turning, avoid reckless U-turns and keep off pedestrian spaces. Businesses must not convert pavements into warehouses. Authorities must maintain crossings, signs, lighting and walkable routes. Police must enforce all these duties consistently rather than waiting for public outrage to select the offence of the month.

Academically speaking, effective traffic governance depends on the system being coherent. Sarcastically speaking, everyone must stop behaving as though the road was inherited from their grandfather.

The MVR 100 fine may help. Even a small penalty can influence behaviour if people believe there is a realistic chance it will be imposed. But deterrence depends less on the amount than on certainty. A fine that exists only in a statute is merely literature—and unlike most literature, nobody reads it voluntarily.

The law must also be implemented with common sense. The ministry’s regulations should clearly define how far a person must be from a designated crossing before crossing elsewhere becomes illegal. They should account for roads with no pavement, crossings that are poorly placed, paths obstructed by vehicles or merchandise, people with disabilities, the elderly, children and emergency situations. The public must know the rules before enforcement begins. Otherwise, citizens will learn the law in the traditional Maldivian way: when someone uploads a fine slip to Facebook.

Most importantly, enforcement must be balanced. If a pedestrian pays MVR 100 for crossing outside a zebra crossing, the rider who refuses to stop at that zebra crossing should not be allowed to disappear majestically into traffic. If a pedestrian is told to remain on the pavement, the shopkeeper occupying it and the motorist parked on it should receive more than a polite social-media reminder.

The purpose of a road law is not to discipline one category of road user. It is to establish a predictable public space in which everyone knows what others are likely to do. Predictability saves lives. At present, travelling through Malé often demands the reflexes of an action hero and the fatalism of a philosopher.

So yes, let us have the jaywalking law. Let us use zebra crossings. Let us teach children to cross safely and adults to resist crossing wherever their feet develop political independence.

But let us also recognise the whole road.

Fine the jaywalker. Fine the reckless rider. Tow the pavement-blocking vehicle. Remove the shop stock. Enforce the lane. Penalise the sudden U-turn. Protect the zebra crossing. Design pavements that human beings can actually use.

Because Malé does not suffer from a shortage of rules. It suffers from our remarkable national ability to regard every rule as excellent advice for somebody else.

If we are going to bring order to our roads, one law may not be enough. We may indeed need a road-traffic Bible.

But even a Bible is of limited use when everyone believes he is the main character—and that the road will part for him.

FROM A THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD CLERK TO A STATESMAN: REMEMBERING A MENTOR, 11 YEARS ON

It has been eleven years since Late Hon. Uz. Abdulla Hameed left this world.

Last year, on the tenth anniversary of his passing, I wrote about the faith he placed in me when I had lost faith in myself. This year, I found myself reflecting on the extraordinary journey of the man who gave me that second chance.

Born on 31 March 1939, Abdulla Hameed entered government service at just thirteen, beginning as a clerk at the communications office. By nineteen, he had become the Atoll Chief of Lhaviyani Atoll.

That was the beginning of a remarkable life in public service.

Over the decades, he served as a Member of Parliament, Cabinet Minister and Speaker of the People’s Majlis. He contributed to the development of Hulhulé Airport, the atolls and the education sector. He was also a respected literary figure who cared deeply about the Dhivehi language, our history and our culture.

He was eventually conferred the Order of Distinguished Rule of Izzuddeen.

Yet, titles and honours only tell us how high a man rose. They do not tell us how many people he lifted along the way.

I was one of them.

When I entered the film industry, I quickly became disillusioned. By the time I was transferred to the Ministry of Atolls Administration, where Hon. Abdulla Hameed served as minister, I was frustrated and almost ready to walk away from storytelling.

He must have seen something in me that I could no longer see in myself.

The TVM Office Drama Competition was one of the most anticipated events of Ramadan. The ministry’s previous entry had received harsh criticism. He could have chosen someone more experienced—or avoided taking the risk altogether.

Instead, he chose me.

He entrusted me with producing the ministry’s next drama, gave me complete creative freedom and instructed everyone to offer their full support.

He did not stand over my shoulder.

He stood behind me.

That year, the Ministry of Atolls won Best Drama and Best Actress. Over the next four years, we won twelve awards, including two more Best Drama titles.

But what I gained cannot be measured in trophies.

I experimented. I failed. I learned. I found my voice and, most importantly, my way back to storytelling.

Throughout those productions, he made sure my cast and crew were treated with dignity. To him, they were not merely government employees appearing in an office drama. They were artists, and he made them feel like artists.

During one celebration, he said something I have carried ever since:

“He is a gem that Atolls has.”

Perhaps he never realised what those words meant to me. One sentence, spoken with faith, became a lifeline for a young man drowning in doubt.

Whenever rejection becomes louder than hope, or I begin to question whether I still have anything meaningful to offer, I remember the man who saw a gem where I saw only broken stone.

On 18 August 2015, Hon. Abdulla Hameed passed away at the age of seventy-six. His body returned home draped in the national flag, and the country observed three days of official mourning.

The Maldives buried a statesman.

I lost a mentor.

Eleven years later, history remembers his journey from a thirteen-year-old clerk to the Speaker’s chair. I remember the man who trusted a discouraged young writer with a drama and opened a door when I believed every door had closed.

Perhaps that is the truest measure of a life—not merely how far someone rises, but how many others rise because of him.

Eleven years on, I am still writing. Every story, every character and every moment I have placed on a screen carries somewhere within it a small part of the faith he once placed in me.

His titles belong to history.

His words belong to my life.

May Allah fill his grave with light and grant him the highest place in Jannah.

Aameen.

NAJMAATTHA: THE VOICE BEYOND THE STATIC

On 3 November 1988, the distance between Colombo and Malé was measured not in miles, but in static.

I was in Colombo continuing my studies. Every day, I tuned in to Radio Maldives. The signal was faint, but whenever my mother’s voice emerged through the noise, it brought home a little closer.

Then Malé was attacked.

I knew what was happening, but the telephone lines had been cut and the radio signal had disappeared. I could not contact my family. I did not know if the people I loved were safe.

That night, I kept waking and turning on the radio.

Static.

Then, towards dawn, a signal returned.

And I heard my mother’s voice announcing that the Maldives had been saved.

To the nation, she was delivering the news.

To me, she was delivering my family back.

If my mother had gone to the radio station, I knew everyone at home must be safe. For a frightened son thousands of kilometres away, that was proof enough.

Thirty-eight years later, on the National Day of the Maldives, that memory returned to me.

My mother, Najma Hussain—affectionately known to the public as Najmaatha—received the National Award of Honour in the Field of News and Information Dissemination from the President of the Maldives for her outstanding service to the nation.

Today, the nation carried its gratitude back to her.

My mother joined Radio Maldives on 8 July 1970. She began as an announcer and rose through the institution as a senior announcer, presenter-producer, programme organiser, senior programme organiser and finally, director.

By the time she retired on 1 April 2009, she had devoted nearly thirty-nine years of her life to public broadcasting. Retirement, however, did not silence that familiar voice; she continues to lend it to private radio stations.

But job titles tell only a small part of her story.

She read the news, wrote and presented programmes, produced content and trained a new generation of broadcasters. Her programmes covered almost every part of Maldivian life—our national identity, Islamic history, fishing, health, family, youth, the environment, and Dhivehi language and literature.

In many ways, her work became a record of how a young country spoke to itself while it was growing.

She continued learning throughout her career, undertaking professional training in the Maldives and abroad. More importantly, she returned and shared that knowledge with those who followed her.

A voice can present a programme.

A mentor helps create many more voices.

My mother never served the nation in search of applause. Like so many people of her generation, she simply believed that the work entrusted to her had to be done properly.

This award does not create her worth.

It recognises what was already there.

For generations of Maldivians, Najmaattha was a familiar and trusted voice. Her programmes informed them, educated them and kept them company.

But my own history with that voice is different.

It is the voice I searched for through the static.

It is the voice that reached me when every other connection to home had been severed.

It is the voice that told me my country had been saved—and, without speaking directly to me, told me that my family was safe.

On that morning in 1988, I felt proud of my mother.

Today, I feel that same pride again.

Only deeper.

The nation may remember Najmaattha as a broadcaster, producer, mentor, director and recipient of the National Award of Honour.

I will always remember her as the voice beyond the static.

The voice that brought home back to me.

Congratulations, Mamma.

May Allah reward you for every moment you devoted to the nation, bless you with good health and happiness, and make this honour a source of pride in this life and the next.

Aameen.

FOUR YEARS, AND I STILL WAIT FOR YOU

It has been four years, Bappa.

Four years since that Friday morning when the doctors fought for forty-five minutes to keep you with us.

At exactly 7:33 AM, they stopped.

My world did too.

That morning taught me one of the cruellest truths about grief: the worst moment of your life can happen quietly beside someone else’s perfectly ordinary day.

I once believed time would heal me.

It has not.

It has only taught me how to hide the wound better. How to smile while missing you. How to speak about you without allowing my voice to break.

Moving forward is not the same as moving on.

These four years have also taught me how dangerous the word “tomorrow” can be.

I thought there would always be another day to sit beside you. Another day to listen to your stories and record your memories.

There were so many questions I wanted to ask. But I kept postponing them because I believed we had tomorrow.

Tomorrow did come.

But you did not.

Now, all I have are the memories I return to again and again.

One memory that refuses to leave me is the day Taqi was born.

We were in Bangkok. You were in Malé.

When I called, I heard your happiness—and the sadness of a grandfather who could not be there to welcome his grandson.

“Don’t worry about anything,” you said.

That was all. But even from thousands of kilometres away, those words made me feel you were standing beside us.

I still remember the day you received a clean bill of health. You stretched your arms out proudly, almost like an athlete preparing for the Olympics.

We laughed.

You laughed with us.

It was such a small moment. I did not know then that I was standing inside a memory I would one day return to with tears.

That is the cruelty of memories. We can visit them as often as we want, but we can never stay. We can relive the moments we had, but we can never make new ones.

Did you know that almost everyone has moved into our house?

Everyone except you.

I often imagine how happy you would have been to see your children finally home. The rooms are full now, yet your absence fills them more than anything else.

I once believed strength meant not breaking.

Now I know it means waking up broken and continuing anyway. It means carrying sorrow without allowing it to become bitterness.

Most days, I manage.

But beneath all the strength I try to show, I am only a son who wants his father back.

Just for one day.

One hour.

One final conversation.

This time, I would not look at the clock. I would not postpone a single question.

I would tell you how deeply sorry I am for the distance I once allowed between us, and how much I regret the precious time we lost because of it.

I would hold your hand and tell you how much I love you. How much I still need you. How empty the world has felt without you.

I would keep saying it until I was certain you had heard me.

It has been four years, Bappa.

My mind knows you are not coming back.

But knowing has never stopped my heart from waiting.

I miss you more than these words could ever hold.

May Allah forgive all your sins, fill your grave with light, widen it beyond measure, and grant you the highest place in Jannat al-Firdaus.

Ameen.

BHAGAVANTH KESARI (2023): I DON’T CARE WHY I ENJOY NBK FILMS

I have not even the slightest clue why I enjoy Nandamuri Balakrishna films.

Perhaps the question itself is unnecessary. Asking why one enjoys a Balakrishna film is like asking why people stand close to the sea during a storm. You know something unreasonable is about to happen. You know the laws of nature may be temporarily suspended. Yet you remain exactly where you are—waiting for the wave to hit.

And Bhagavanth Kesari is no exception.

Balakrishna plays Nelakonda Bhagavanth Kesari, a man who takes responsibility for Vijji, the daughter of his deceased friend. His dream is to make her strong enough to face the world without him. Vijji, naturally, has other plans. She wants an ordinary life. Kesari wants her to join the army.

His method of parenting occasionally looks less like encouragement and more like military training conducted by an emotionally unavailable bulldozer. But beneath all the shouting, intimidation and impossible action sequences, there is genuine affection.

That is what surprised me about the film.

Director Anil Ravipudi understands that a Balakrishna film needs its expected ingredients. There must be powerful entrances. There must be punch dialogues. Villains must make the unfortunate mistake of standing within Balakrishna’s physical reach. And once the fighting begins, human anatomy becomes more of a suggestion than a medical fact.

The villains do not simply fall. They travel.

Yet Bhagavanth Kesari tries to do something more meaningful within that familiar formula. At its heart, this is not merely the story of a man protecting a young woman. It is about a man teaching her to protect herself.

That difference matters.

Kesari could easily have been written as another invincible hero who spends the entire film rescuing a helpless girl. Instead, he wants Vijji to overcome her fears and become stronger than the circumstances surrounding her. He knows he may not always be there. His responsibility, therefore, is not to stand between her and the world forever. It is to prepare her to face that world alone.

The film’s message about empowering girls is hardly subtle. In fact, subtlety enters the room, sees Balakrishna and quietly leaves. But the message works because the emotional relationship between Kesari and Vijji gives it weight.

Sreeleela is effective as Vijji, particularly when the character’s fear begins to transform into courage. Kajal Aggarwal brings warmth and some welcome lightness, although her character is not given as much importance as the central relationship deserves. Arjun Rampal makes a suitably arrogant villain. He does what villains in such films are required to do: accumulate power, underestimate the hero and patiently wait for his bones to be rearranged.

But this is Balakrishna’s film.

He carries the larger-than-life moments with his usual authority, yet he is equally convincing in the quieter scenes. There is a surprising tenderness in his performance. His bond with Vijji never needs to become conventionally sentimental for us to understand how deeply he cares for her.

Of course, the film has its weaknesses. It is loud. Some scenes are stretched. The villain belongs to a much more predictable film. The action is excessive, and logic occasionally takes a tea break without informing anyone.

Still, I enjoyed it.

Perhaps I enjoyed it because Balakrishna never performs with embarrassment. He commits completely. When he delivers a line, he believes it. When he walks into a confrontation, he behaves as though the background score was composed before he was born. That sincerity makes even the most outrageous moments strangely entertaining.

And somewhere inside all that noise is a sincere film about fear, responsibility and raising a girl to believe she is not weak.

Bhagavanth Kesari was later honoured as the Best Telugu Feature Film at the 71st National Film Awards—a recognition that makes sense when one considers the social message wrapped inside its commercial cinema machinery. The award went to producer Shine Screens and director Anil Ravipudi.

Is it a perfect film?

No.

Is it always believable?

Certainly not.

Did I enjoy watching Balakrishna walk through men as though they were badly arranged furniture?

Absolutely.

I still have no clue why I enjoy Nandamuri Balakrishna films.

And, borrowing Bhagavanth Kesari’s own philosophy, perhaps I don’t care.

MAA INTI BANGAARAM (2026): WHEN THE WOMAN OF THE HOUSE BECOMES THE MASS HERO

There is a moment in Maa Inti Bangaaram when the film quietly puts away its family-drama clothes, rolls up its sleeves and reveals that it has been carrying a weapon all along.

And what a delightful reveal it is.

Directed by B. V. Nandini Reddy, Maa Inti Bangaaram stars Samantha Ruth Prabhu as Swarna, a woman entering her husband’s traditional family home while hiding a violent past. Diganth plays her husband, Anirudh, while Gulshan Devaiah appears as the dangerous shadow following her from the life she thought she had escaped. The film was created by Raj Nidimoru and blends action, comedy and family drama with surprising confidence.

On paper, these ingredients should not mix.

We have a daughter-in-law trying to win over her husband’s family. There are domestic rivalries, family politics, comic misunderstandings and the usual pressure to become the “ideal woman.” Then there are guns, gangsters, buried identities and enough flying bodies to make the family furniture reconsider its career choices.

Yet somehow, it works.

The film understands something many action movies forget: action becomes more exciting when we care about the person throwing the punch.

Swarna does not enter the story as a conventional mass hero. She enters cautiously, almost apologetically, hoping to be accepted into a family that already seems to have a perfect daughter-in-law in Anasuya. Sreemukhi plays Anasuya with terrific comic timing. Her competition with Swarna produces some of the film’s funniest moments because the conflict is rooted in something wonderfully ordinary—the politics of being appreciated inside a large family.

In a South Asian household, wars are not always fought over land or power. Sometimes they begin because somebody made a better curry.

The first half allows us to enjoy this family world. It is colourful, chaotic and affectionate without becoming excessively sugary. Beneath Swarna’s nervous smile, however, we sense that she is performing. She is not merely trying to impress her in-laws. She is trying to protect the peaceful life she has built.

Then her past comes looking for her.

This is where Maa Inti Bangaaram transforms. The change in tone could easily have broken the film into two unrelated halves. Instead, the comedy and family drama become the emotional foundation for the action. Swarna is not fighting because the screenplay suddenly remembered that it had promised us a mass movie. She fights because the home she struggled to enter has finally become her home.

That makes all the difference.

Samantha is the gold at the centre of the film.

She is funny without forcing the humour, vulnerable without appearing weak and fierce without losing Swarna’s humanity. When the film finally allows her to unleash the woman she has been hiding, Samantha owns the screen. She does not imitate the body language of a male action star. She creates her own mass presence.

And yes, she can throw a punch.

More importantly, she can make us feel why that punch must be thrown.

Gulshan Devaiah brings menace to Karuna without turning him into a noisy cartoon. His connection to Swarna’s former life gives the conflict a personal edge. He is not simply an enemy waiting at the climax. He represents the identity she abandoned and the belief that domestic life has made her smaller.

The film’s answer is simple: family has not weakened her. It has given her something worth becoming strong for.

That, for me, is the heart of Maa Inti Bangaaram.

The movie celebrates family without asking its heroine to surrender herself to it. Swarna does not earn acceptance by remaining obedient, silent and endlessly sacrificial. She earns it when the family finally sees her completely—her tenderness, her fear, her mistakes and the dangerous woman hiding beneath the saree.

Nandini Reddy handles this balance beautifully. She understands that a strong female character does not need to be emotionally bulletproof. Swarna can be frightened. She can long for acceptance. She can make questionable decisions. None of that diminishes her strength.

Her vulnerability is not the opposite of courage. It is what makes courage necessary.

The film is not flawless. Some portions stretch longer than needed, and a few developments rely on familiar commercial-cinema conveniences. Logic occasionally steps outside for fresh air while the action takes over the house. But by then, I was having too much fun to complain.

And fun is something Maa Inti Bangaaram delivers generously.

It made me laugh. It made me care about the family. Then it turned the same family home into an action arena without losing the emotional meaning of that space. That is not an easy tonal trick.

What I loved most is that the action does not crush the family sensibilities, and the family emotions do not dilute the action. One strengthens the other. The humour makes the characters lovable. The relationships give the danger weight. And when Swarna finally fights back, it feels both spectacular and deeply personal.

Maa Inti Bangaaram is an unapologetic commercial entertainer with a woman standing proudly at its centre. It has laughter, emotion, family chaos, concealed trauma and gloriously satisfying action.

In other words, it serves a full family meal.

Only here, the woman serving it might also use the dining table to knock out a gangster.

And I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it.

THE ODYSSEY (2026): WHEN THE HERO IS ALSO THE PROBLEM

Long after the end credits of The Odyssey rolled, I kept asking myself two questions.

Is Odysseus really the hero of this story?

Or is he simply the antagonist who has been given more screen time?

That may sound harsh. But Christopher Nolan’s Odysseus is easily one of the most flawed protagonists I have seen in a movie in recent times. He is intelligent, courageous and determined. He is also arrogant, manipulative, reckless and, at times, unbelievably selfish.

In other words, he is a walking human disaster with excellent leadership skills.

We are used to protagonists who make mistakes. Usually, they make one terrible decision in the second act, regret it during a rain-soaked montage and return as better people before the climax.

Odysseus is different.

His flaws are not temporary obstacles on his journey.

His flaws are the journey.

He lies. He manipulates. He makes decisions that place everyone around him in danger. Men suffer because of him. Men die because of him. Yet he continues moving forward, driven by the belief that reaching home somehow justifies everything that happens along the way.

And somehow, despite all this, I wanted him to reach home.

That is where Nolan’s writing becomes fascinating.

The film does not ask us to blindly admire Odysseus. It asks us to understand him. There is a major difference between the two. You may not always like him. You may occasionally want one of his crew members to gently throw him overboard. But you understand his desperation, his guilt, his pride and his refusal to accept defeat.

It raises an uncomfortable question.

What makes someone a protagonist?

Is it goodness?

Is it morality?

Or is it simply the fact that the story follows them?

Odysseus may be the central character, but he is also responsible for much of the pain surrounding him. In another version of the same story, told from the perspective of one of his exhausted crew members, he could easily be the villain.

Imagine surviving a war, boarding a ship for home and then realising your captain has enough pride to turn a straightforward journey into a ten-year nightmare.

I would have resigned.

Of course, there was probably no resignation form available in ancient Greece.

Nolan does not provide a simple answer to whether Odysseus is a protagonist or an antagonist. Instead, he allows him to exist somewhere between the two. He is a hero capable of terrible choices. A victim who creates victims. A man fighting monsters while slowly becoming one to the people who follow him.

That complexity is what makes him so compelling.

Christopher Nolan has always been interested in damaged men.

Leonard in Memento was trapped inside memory. Cobb in Inception was trapped inside guilt. Cooper in Interstellar was trapped between love and duty. Oppenheimer was trapped beneath the consequences of his own brilliance.

Odysseus may be trapped inside something even more dangerous.

His own belief in himself.

Adapting Homer’s classic was already an enormous challenge. The Odyssey has been interpreted, reinterpreted, studied and discussed for centuries. Most filmmakers would probably approach it with extreme caution, quietly polish the mythology and hope nobody from a university classics department becomes angry.

Nolan does something braver.

He humanises it.

He does not treat Homer’s work as a sacred museum piece that must be admired from behind glass. He enters the story, takes the mythology apart and rebuilds it through recognisable human emotions.

Pride.

Fear.

Love.

Grief.

Guilt.

The desire to return home, even when home may no longer recognise the person returning.

Nolan’s screenplay respects the original story, but it is not afraid to question it. It challenges the idea of the legendary hero. It asks whether history remembers great men honestly, or whether it simply edits out the inconvenient parts.

Legends usually become cleaner with time.

Nolan makes Odysseus dirty again.

And I mean that as a compliment.

The film’s greatest achievement is that the gods, monsters and mythical creatures never overshadow the human beings. The mythology remains powerful, but it is always connected to fear, temptation, grief and consequence.

One of the most inspired examples is the sequence involving the Sirens.

Most filmmakers would probably approach the Sirens as an opportunity to create the most seductive song ever recorded. There would be haunting voices, dramatic close-ups and perhaps a soundtrack album released immediately after the premiere.

Nolan chooses something far more interesting.

He presents much of the sequence from the point of view of Odysseus’ crew, who have blocked their ears with wax to avoid being tantalised by the singing.

They cannot hear the Sirens.

And because we are placed with them, neither can we fully experience what Odysseus is hearing.

Instead, we see him reacting to something invisible.

We watch him struggle, twist and desperately fight against the ropes restraining him. The crew can only observe their captain being consumed by a sound they cannot hear and a temptation they cannot understand.

It is terrifying.

By withholding the song from us, Nolan makes it more powerful. We are denied the beauty that is driving Odysseus mad. We only witness the madness.

That is brilliant filmmaking.

The scene also says something important about Odysseus. He knows the danger. He prepares for it. He orders his crew to protect themselves.

But he still wants to hear the song.

That is Odysseus in one decision.

Wise enough to understand temptation.

Arrogant enough to believe he can experience it safely.

The performances are excellent throughout the film.

The entire cast manages to make this ancient world feel inhabited by human beings rather than statues brought to life. Nobody appears to be performing mythology. They perform exhaustion, loyalty, fear, resentment, love and survival.

Even the smaller roles carry emotional weight. You feel that every member of the crew has lived through the war and is now slowly realising that surviving the battlefield may have been the easier part.

But the film belongs to Matt Damon.

Damon gives one of the strongest performances of his career as Odysseus. He does not play him as a conventional warrior king. There is no effort to make him permanently heroic or endlessly noble.

His Odysseus is tired.

He is stubborn.

He is frightened.

He is brilliant.

He is selfish.

He is broken.

Sometimes all within the same scene.

Damon has always been very good at playing intelligent men under pressure. Here, he adds something darker. You can almost see Odysseus calculating the cost of every decision, even when the cost involves the lives of others.

Yet Damon never allows him to become completely cold.

There are moments where the mask slips and we see the man beneath the legend. We see the burden of command. We see the guilt he refuses to express. We see a man who desperately wants to return home, but may no longer remember how to be the husband, father or king who left it.

The performance works because Damon does not beg for sympathy.

He earns our attention instead.

Even when Odysseus makes a terrible decision, Damon makes us believe that he has already found a way to justify it to himself.

That may be the most frightening thing about him.

The cinematography is magnificent.

Although I watched the film on an average screen, I could still feel the spectacle and epicness of what Nolan had created. This is clearly a film designed for the enormous canvas of IMAX 70mm, but its power is not limited to the size of the screen.

Even on a normal screen, the film feels huge.

The sea appears endless.

The skies seem to weigh heavily over the characters.

The ships look fragile against nature.

The landscapes do not merely provide beautiful backgrounds. They make the characters look small, vulnerable and temporary.

That visual contrast is important.

Odysseus may believe he can outthink gods, monsters and fate itself, but the images constantly remind us that he is still only a man standing beneath an enormous sky.

The cinematography also has a physical quality that I loved. The world feels rough, wet, cold and dangerous. You can almost feel the salt on the characters’ skin. The ships creak. The wind has force. The waves do not look like visual effects designed to impress us. They look like something capable of killing everyone before the next scene.

There is beauty in the film, but it is never comfortable beauty.

The camera often holds on faces long enough for the mythology to disappear. In those moments, these are no longer legendary figures from an ancient poem. They are simply frightened men wondering whether they will ever see home again.

The score is equally powerful.

It does not merely announce the scale of the film. It carries the emotional weight of the journey.

At times, the music is thunderous and overwhelming. At other times, it becomes quiet, mournful and almost intimate. It understands that The Odyssey is not only an adventure.

It is also a tragedy.

The score does not constantly ask us to celebrate Odysseus. Sometimes it asks us to fear him. Sometimes it asks us to pity him. Sometimes it seems to mourn the people being dragged behind his ambition.

And sometimes, particularly during the quieter moments, the music feels like the memory of home itself—distant, fragile and slowly fading

What I thoroughly enjoyed most was the humanisation of the classic.

Nolan gives us spectacle, monsters, battles, seas and myth. But beneath all that, he gives us a deeply human story about a man trying to return to the person he once was.

The tragedy is that the journey keeps changing him.

By the time Odysseus reaches closer to home, the real question is no longer whether he will arrive.

It is whether the man who arrives is still Odysseus.

Perhaps that is why I found the film so powerful.

It is not merely about returning home.

It is about whether home can survive what you have become.

And whether you deserve to enter it.

The Odyssey is a brave, visually breathtaking and emotionally complex retelling of Homer’s classic. Nolan delivers the epicness expected from the material, but refuses to let spectacle become the heart of the film.

The heart remains Odysseus.

A hero.

A liar.

A survivor.

A destroyer.

A protagonist who frequently behaves like his own antagonist.

And perhaps the greatest monster he encounters on the journey is not waiting on an island, beneath the sea or inside a cave.

Perhaps it is the man tied to the mast.

A must-see.