The spaceship landed gently on the tarmac and the plane passengers were too busy looking admiringly at their new clothes to notice the stranger in their midst; some of them had wasted no time to switch their mobile phones on and tell their welcoming relatives watching the plane land that the plane had landed.

People were frantically combing their hair and ensuring that the strong wind had not displaced too much hair and revealed the bald patch they have spent so much time and effort in concealing. The Martian knew straightaway that this human sea of self- indulgence and self-obsession would facilitate an unobtrusive passage through immigration.

He entered the building and noticed that several queues had formed; he joined the one that appeared to be the most efficient simply because, at the end of it, sat a man at a desk who was making every effort to look very important whilst loudly crashing his stamp on the health questionnaires that every passenger has to complete.

“Good evening”, he said politely to the stamp commissar, who was now sweating profusely from the exertion of his 2000th stamp since this morning; “I am from Mars and I am visiting...” he started to say before being told by the expert stamper to save it for immigration; “Not my department,” he said helpfully and pointed to the longer queues at the desks further forward. He wanted to tell him that he was from a different planet and could be carrying some nasty illness but the stamp fetichist from the health department only wanted to stamp and nothing else.

“What is the purpose of your visit?” asked the immigration officer, some 45 minutes after the Martian had joined the queue.

“I have heard so much about your island and I want to see for myself whether it is all true. It is so beautiful and such a contrast from my place where everything is red.”

“Ah, another one from Mars! The last person who told me that is still having treatment in Beau-Bassin,” said the immigration officer in the usual patronising voice that seems to be the prerequisite qualification for that job.

<B>Servility</B>

“No, sir, I am a special envoy from Mars and my government has asked me to find out if everything that is said about Mauritius is true.” On hearing the word ‘government’, the immigration officer immediately jumped to attention and fearing an admonitory phone call from some Foreign affairs ministry official if he said the wrong thing to our interplanetary friend, adopted a conciliatory, even servile attitude. “How can I help you, sir? Come into my office and we can chat about this over a nice cup of tea.”

They retired to the immigration officer’s spartan office and he quickly hid the Star Wars poster he had placed there some time ago to prove his modern cultural credentials. “Is it true that everything is free in Mauritius?” asked the bemused Martian. “No sir ,” replied the officer with a genuine burst of patriotism. “That is a lie spread by people who do not love my country. Not everything is free here. For example, if you use the toilet, we will tax you; some people want to shit for free but the water sewerage tax is here to stay. We also have income tax but our new government loves us so much that soon most of us won’t have to pay any income tax.”

The Martian was clearly taken aback by this and his basic sense of mathematics told him that there was something not quite right here. “But you have a free health service?” “Yes,” replied the officer proudly. “And a free education system?” “Yes”, repeated the officer, detecting perhaps a note of envy in the stranger’s voice. “And a free non contributory universal pension scheme and free public transport for every student and pensioner?” “Yes, Yes,” exclaimed the official in almost orgasmic delight at the munificence of his government and the incredulity of his visitor. “And is it true that you pay everyone 13 months’ pay whether they work efficiently or not?” “Yesssssir,” shouted the officer, now clearly proud of such generosity by his government. “But there are only twelve months in a year!” said the Martian, trying to inject some logic into this conversation. The officer replaced an answer with a smirk as if telling the Martian to stop being such a spoil sport.

<B>Democracy</B>

The Martian was completely baffled; for years, he had been told that the inhabitants of planet Earth were highly intelligent beings with a deep sense of logic and common sense. And now he was faced with this grinning idiot whose best effort at maths would make 2+2=5 and be proud with that deduction. “Tell me,” he asked slowly, “how can you afford to spend like this? You must surely have gold mines, oil wells, precious stones, first class industries, etc. Where do you get the money to spend so recklessly like this?”

The officer responded proudly and patronisingly : “Money isn’t everything, my friend. We have great leaders and although we change them every five years, they love giving us anything we want for free. This is true democracy. We give them our votes and in return they give us nice things. If they don’t, we vote the other lot in.”

Our extraterrestrial friend could not understand this mentality. “But don’t you have leaders who want to make your beautiful island prosperous by putting it on a sound financial footing? Leaders who can look further than tomorrow or until the next elections and who have at least a ten-year vision? Someone like Manmohan Singh, for example? Look at India in the early nineties and look at India now.”

“Ah, Bharat mata,” said the officer, with a tear rolling down his cheek. “I am going there next month, using up the passage benefits that our government grants us.” The officer then told him that when he got his next promotion and earned more money, the government would allow him to buy a car free of any excise duties.

<B>Killer question</B>

The Martian scratched his metal head and asked himself vainly whether there was anything at all that the Mauritian government did not provide for free. He thought he had the killer question now that the price of oil has more than doubled in the last six months. He asked. “The price of petrol in the UK and Belgium is now Rs 51 a litre, in France, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Germany: Rs 49 a litre; it has gone up everywhere else in the world, even in the US, but Mauritius still sells it at Rs 26 a litre. How do you do that?” The officer became exasperated and lost his self-control. ‘“Listen to me, metal head; I have already told you we have very nice people in our government. That nice Mr Berenger froze petrol prices in July thinking we would vote for him and that nice Mr Ramgoolam will not raise the price until we have voted for him in the municipal elections. What is so difficult to understand about that? Now, how long do you wish to stay in our country?”

The Martian politely refused the offer to prolong his stay in Wonderland and returned to his spaceship; he smiled at the casual insult towards his planet that people on earth always used whenever they accused someone of being out of touch with reality and vowed to turn it on its head. In future, he would ask anyone talking absolute gibberish and living in cloud-cuckoo-land whether they were from Mauritius!

<B>R.A.J.</B>