The aborigines of Giraavaru

Composed on 17 January 1989

In my childhood days

They were already a vanishing breed,

Like their "giraa" island,

Slowly dissolving into the sea.

The folks of Giraavaru stood apart from the rest,

Numbering some sixty or so,

In a nation of eighty thousand then,

Telling us a story of a distant past.

Why they were different,

As a child, I wondered,

Speaking with an accent

Unknown in the neighbouring isles.

Their men and women

Often burst into song and dance,

Recounting the ancient lore

Of discovering Malé, the capital of this age.

Some other yarns of the fishing folks

Told of a "bodu-Baburu"

In the middle of the sea,

And of their adventures in Andaman, the Cannibal Isle.

Shrill voices and a dialect of their own,

Costumes of women, bright and gay