I have often wondered what our dear Mauritian writers are up to nowadays. They must all be oh so busy writing about horticulture, about ?le salon de la maison and du jardin? and other nonsensical events that no one really remembers the next business day. None of these will ever raise questions, none will be shocked, none will get down on the streets with such goody feel goody writing. I have no care in the world about good old sanitized Mauritian literature. I demand to be shocked. I demand to be made to think. So when will someone back home get his/her acts together and write about, ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce the topic once and for all : ??the plight of the small time Mauritian worker?.

A guaranteed best seller, and that too worldwide! No one writes about them, this sorry forgotten lot. Feels like time itself put them in a closet. The closet of lost dreams, lost causes. I dream of a book on our village folks who work in the five star hotels along the littoral. Prakash, Sylvain, Jacques, Paul, Anand, Bebette, Bomzol, any of them as long as I hear their voices, as long as I hear their stories told to me without bollywoodization, without hollywoodization. Just a plain voice telling me about a simple rich (actually poor very poor) life. The life of a guy or gal who leaves for work early in the morning, takes a couple of connecting buses, and arrives at the hotel, to get the honor to ?serve? the whole day. A return to colonial servility my friend, and then to end with the cherry on the cake, he/she finally earns a terrible disgusting pittance. A spit in the face of our soi-disant free equitable state.

Modern colonization is still very much present like our shadow, but we do not seem bothered about it anymore. No one bothers to notice the invisible lot of the workers created in the process. The invisible ones. They earn a pittance (what is it ? Rs 5000 per month), when the daily rate of a hotel room is double, triple, quadruple this. Note I said the DAILY rate.

What has been created is a pittance. A whole bunch of people with the following job description: wash glass and plates, draw curtain, sweep floor, drive rich tourists to airport, sing sega and entertain rich tourist, clean car, walk on golf course with rich tourist, drive rich tourists to the hotel and etc etc etc

They just do not get it. Do they? They don`t. So, you said you wanted to write about something, well then, write.

Rattan GUJADHUR

May 2008