i find myself nodding thoughtfully while an old schoolmate in a grey tux and a pale blue shirt speaks to me with the enthusiasm of a long lost friend reconnecting. i too am dressed in a tux, green with a cream linen shirt. let me explain. i’m at a function with sampaafulhu, nadheemadhi, and abdurrahman. an insider told me to come early so i could enjoy the canapes. if you must know, my invitation to this special event hosted by the high commission of australia comes from my longstanding relationship with the land of bogans & radical bands (king gizzard and the lizard wizard, parcels, surprise chef). samfa might add ac/dc but they annoy me.

‘how come i don’t even see you on the road, man?’ asks my important acquaintance.

‘i don’t think we walk the same roads,’ i tell him.

‘then you must be walking through those little tiny goalhis, haha,’ he laughs. his wife, whom i also know comes up to me and asks me how i am.

very well i tell her. she’s a cousin of my friend ahanma. as we talk i spot my psychiatrist’s curly head bobbing in the distance.

‘are you ok?,’ asks ahanma’s cousin.

‘oh, i just spotted my psychiatrist,’ i tell her.

‘ah, she’s everyone’s psychiatrist,’ she laughs.

‘is she yours?’

‘that’s a personal matter, wouldn’t you say husenfulhu?’ laughs the cousin. ‘you haven’t changed much i see. and it’s not surprising at all.’

we walk over to a table laden with drinks.

‘i really like peach,’ she says picking one up daintily.

‘i’m peachy keen on peach,’ I tell her and she looks at me strangely.

‘have you met ahanma recently?’ i ask her, trying to make her feel comfortable. i can be accommodating.

‘he always hangs out with my husband,’ she says. ‘i see him often.’

‘too often?’

she laughs, baring her small neat teeth in a forty-year-old face that looks twenty.

‘he has children, so…’

‘do you have children?’ i ask her.

‘no, do you?’

and then samfa appears at my elbow.

‘hey, do you know sampaafulhu?’ i ask the cousin. ‘she’s my wife.’

her husband beams.

‘of course i know that, man. i knew you guys were together even when you were dating.’

‘wow, were you keeping tabs on me?’ i ask.

‘no my guy, it was common knowledge.’

ah, i think. common knowledge among a certain group of people. one might even say class.
oh but when we were dating. that was so long ago, when we had everything before us, a future that we believed would involve fun, friends, and great food.

and now look at us, sipping drinks smoky with dry ice at some event by the australians to celebrate islam in australia through photography. how does the twenty something me feel about THIS turn of events?

as i bite into a rendang beef pastry, the present becomes justified in a rush of sweet and beefy flavour.

‘good lord,’ i tell samfa. ‘you should taste the pie.’

she does and i see her face light up in appreciation.

and then the speeches begin. i wander up to nadheemadhi who’s in a cute black and red dress, and begin to annoy her.

‘you have madu in your nose,’ she says smiling evilly.

‘god! i was speaking to a senior government official. no wonder they asked me if i was ok.’

‘typical,’ says nadhee.

but at last the photographer, who travelled around australia to shoot far off places touched by the light of islam, begins his talk. and it is interesting. he is proposing that abroginals in the north traded and inter-married with indonesians who used the trade winds to reach the top of the continent before the white man. this is apparently evidenced by the burial rites of those aboriginals which bear more than a striking resemblance to the indonesian muslim burial rights.

and oh, the photographer is a friend of yousuf islam. cat stevens, if you will.

‘maybe you should shake his hand,’ i tell nadhee who tells me to shush.

then they start the lucky draw and only one maldivian person gets lucky.

‘it’s rigged,’ a large woman snaps. ‘how come all the foreign diplomats are getting the goof stuff.’

‘don’t you mean good?’ i ask them and they glower at me. i glower back.

‘what are you doing? don’t do that,’ says nadheemadhi. ‘behave yourself, please husenfulhu.’

then it is over, and everyone mingles like the aborigines and the muslim indonesians, not exactly but you get what i mean. and everyone is mad about the lambchops, but there’s not enough for us all.

‘it’s really wonderful and tender,’ says samfa. ‘why aren’t you having any?’

‘i could do without red meat for a while,’ i tell her.

and lord knows i’ve eaten enough mutton and lamb in my indian sojourn. i try to find the artist but he is mobbed by more important people than myself such as the coral stone mosque person for example. but all in all, i quite like the night, though one might say, if one knows me, that i will be as out of place here as a screwdriver in nadheemadhi’s tiny manicured hands.

but if meditating has taught me anything it is that i can slip into any self i wish to inhabit, i create the self, instead of being constrained by it. so, this self belongs here, just as it does anywhere else, it is happy to abide by the conventions of the place, like a law abiding tourist. the superficiality of everything is only grating when you let it, you can delight in how someone or something appears to be instead of trying to decipher a true and hidden reality underneath, and failing. i’m happy here to go by appearances, and i have no doubt that i appear quite happy to others.

and so, i take photos with samfa’s colleagues, i talk to people i haven’t seen in years, i exchange jokes with my psychiatrist, not as a patient but as this self. it is that kind of night, unbridled and brimming with possibility.

and good god, how samfa outshines everything in a simple sunny dress.

note: dear reader, the exhibition is open to the public at the NAG until thursday 5th of feb.