Art: Engulfed   June 2011

It was so hot that we all spent most of our time down at the beach, constantly in and out of the water, and it only made sense that we would use that to any advantage we could. Oh, an irate father would eventually come out into the water to catch an errant child, we all knew – but most of the time he would only come out so far, and most fathers could only come out so fast. And none of them could hear what was being said underwater.

This was probably something of a coping mechanism, a bit of catharsis for what ailed you – and at that age much did. You could scream as loudly as you wanted underwater, use any expletive, vent even the vilest of hatred. You could even talk openly of love and desire – there were few things that could relieve teenage hormones better than giving voice to inner longings. Blrrb blrrble blub, a boy would say underwater, and a girl would just look at him quizzically, though perhaps knowingly.

Games are fun but life continues apace, and we did eventually come up with a slightly more urgent form of underwater communication. I was about nine at the time of the landslide, or whatever you’d call it – the day a large section of the reef suddenly collapsed, pinning and eventually killing one boy under a large piece of coral. We were all spread out over a huge area of the bay at the time, maybe a quarter-mile radius; none of us heard his screams, but everyone who was underwater at the time heard the sharp sound of coral against coral, over and over again. It sounded like a thousand knives dropped on a slate floor, like glass towers falling to earth.

Thereafter, the underwater clinking of two rocks together was used as warning of any kind – shark, storm, father. And everyone always listened.

This is part of a series of Himal’s commentary on artwork by Ahmed Suveyb, a selftaughtartist based in Male. Acrylic on canvas, 30x40 in.