Wanted: Direct flight to paradise
THE WEEK India|July 16, 2023
A short-story collection by Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald titled Bits of Paradise came to mind as I took a sea plane from Male to the island resort of Soneva Fushi in western Maldives.
NAVTEJ SARNA
Wanted: Direct flight to paradise

Below us, flung generously across the iridescent blue of the Indian Ocean lay several verdant isles, a handful of 1,200 such pearls that make up this close neighbour, each ringed by a penumbra of clear sea-green water. At the resort, the idea of paradise is reinforced: silvery beaches, humming vegetation, waters teeming with parrot fish, and dolphins putting on a show for gaping visitors.

But paradise can also be a troubled place. Maldives, spread over 90,000sq.km, is one of the world’s most widely dispersed countries; it is 99 per cent water, with a land area of only 300sq.km. With average ground levels only a metre-and-a-half above sea level, climate change is an existential threat. At current levels of global warming, Maldives could be uninhabitable by the end of the century; former president Mohamed Nasheed famously held a cabinet meeting underwater to draw attention to the threat. The damage inflicted by the 2004 tsunami, totalling $400 million, was a glimpse of the future.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة July 16, 2023 من THE WEEK India.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة July 16, 2023 من THE WEEK India.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

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