Wataniya Mas Race under fire from ocean powers

Special report brought to you from underwater by Legacy of Pain, special liaison to “Bakhabaru’s Team Extreme – Going where the hand of reporters have never set foot on!”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Due to the explicit language used in this article, parental guidance is recommended – since it’s always funnier and more enjoyable to experience swearing in the presence of parents.

A press conference was held underwater, somewhere between Malé and Villimalé, in protest of the Wataniya Mas Race. The press conference was organized by Poseidon, Greek god of the sea; Aquaman (Arthur Curry), er… fictional ruler of the seven seas; and Kandu Rasgefaanu, local sea-god who rules over the waves, controls the weather and watches over Rannamaari’s bottle prison. The conference venue was located underwater because Poseidon doesn’t have any powers above water, Aquaman didn’t have anything else to wear other than that gay gold and green scaly tights he always wears and Kandu Rasgefaanu wanted to stay close to Rannamaari – which really is as gay as it sounds.

Bakhabaru, the most respected, trusted and well-known news website in all the known universes, asked me, the most respected and well-known blogger in all known blogdom, to go to the press conference in their stead as none of their fearless reporters were able to breathe underwater or knew how to operate the Whale submarine that Umar “the Solution” Naseer had so generously put at their disposal.

Upon arrival, I discovered that I was the only media personnel there, other than a few fish, a couple of jellyfish, a squid and something I would have to say was the bastard child of a blowfish and lobster. There was a human reporter in diving gear in attendance also, but he was flailing about trying to shake off a shark which was busily trying to chew off his leg, so I couldn’t be sure which media organization he represented. Since I didn’t want to be rude, for I am polite that way, I didn’t interrupt them as they looked like they had some issues that needed to be worked out and chewed on.

Poseidon was in the middle of his speech when I arrived, fashionably late as usual.

Poseidon: … and that’s why we are standing up… err… sitting down… floating, swimming? *ahem* against this whole Wataniya Mas Race thing. We totally don’t approve. In fact, we disapprove. Things were going swimmingly, har har if you’ll excuse the pun, between the surface dwellers and us until this whole Mas Race debacle.

Aquaman: Yeah, what he said. That’s telling ‘em.

Me: Excuse me? Why are you against Wataniya again?

Poseidon: You? What are you doing here? I thought you hated us!

Me: I do. But this is for Bakhabaru News. From the dry-lands. I’m sort of a representative. A deputy reporter-like person. Going places where others cannot, sort of thing, you understand?

Aquaman: Bahabawhat news?

Me: Bakhabaru… look, this will be a lot easier if I did the questioning and you just... umm, bubbled.

Poseidon: It’s not Wataniya we are against; it’s this flipping Mas Race on TV. At first we thought the fish were going to take part in some sort of race and we were really excited. Dhohokko here had even started doing laps between Addu and Malé to prepare for the race. I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said this was not what we expected in a Mas Race.

Aquaman: Yeah! That’s really telling ‘em.

Me & Kandu Rasgefaaanu: Shut the fuck up!

Kandu Rasgefaanu: It’s bad enough when they show filth like that creepy sex-crazed maniac Muhamma Kalo and that lame-finned excuse of a talk show.

Poseidon: A-hem, if I can be allowed to continue… thank you. We don’t even mind the gods-awful wailing polluting our pristine waters under the excuse of singing. It is rather amusing watching those so-called reality shows as some of the participants can’t sing to save their lives and others just manage to rile up the whales down here and dogs up there. But when you bring those lame reality shows to my… our domain, well, that’s where we draw the line.

Me: So let me get this straight… you are okay with the game show ‘Thiyabeyfulhunge Furusathu’?

Aquaman: I’d so do that hostess. I’d make her wriggle like a worm on a—

Me: Nobody is talking to you, Curryman.

Kandu Rasgefaanu: Who invited the pompous parrotfish here anyway?

Aquaman: Now you’ve hurt my feelings…

Me: He has feelings?

Kandu Rasgefaanu: Yeah, one or two. Most of them in his fucking pussy.

Poseidon: Not to sound too supportive of Curryma- er Aquaman, but, hey, I’d do the hostess too.

Me: Fair enough. But shut faggotboy there up, okay?

Poseidon: Moving on… It’s okay when you guys pull out a fish or two every now and then. I get it: it’s how you people earn money… or something. But camon, you gotta draw the line somewhere, for fucksakes!

Me: I thought there were plenty of fish in the sea. *snicker*

Poseidon: It’s not that… it’s just that, someone stole my barracuda tie, and the last time I saw it, it was around the neck of one of the Mas Race team members. When those teams come fishing, it’s total anarchy down here.

Aquaman: And the less fish there are down here, the less fish there are down here to do my chores for me.

Me: I swear to god, Aquaman, I will harpoon you, drag you to land and sauté your ass for dinner if you speak another word.

Poseidon: You better shut up. He looks serious.

Kandu Rasgefaanu: No, no, Aquaman. I say you call his bluff! *snicker*

Poseidon: Right… I’d just like to say, I didn’t like losing my barracuda tie, and that’s why we are against the Wataniya Mas Race.

Curryman: Also, the depleting number of fish!

Me: Aquamaaan!!! *takes up harpoon gun*

Kandu Rasgefaanu: Hell yeah! About time we had some action. Someone throw me my trident!

Aquaman: NNNOOOO!!!!

And that’s how I got to have sautéed Aquaman ass for dinner.

Poseidon was relieved to find out that the show was over for the year, and warned that whoever stole his tie should return it now, or else he’d do something like make the next show impossible by only letting them catch the bastard love children hybrids of blowfish and lobsters. And you don’t want one of those at the end of your hook, thief. Believe me.

Review of Baaraige Fas: I Know What You Did After Midnight and Now I Wish I Didn’t

Stolen from The Voice

Original article by Ahmed Rushdie


Several months ago, after watching Amjad “Amjay” Ibrahim’s so-called “horror movie” Guest House: Room 201 at Olympus cinema, I thought to myself that the main problem with the movie – other than the atrocious directing and numerous technical failures – was that the story was… well to put it bluntly, plain stupid. It occurred to me that if Amjay had come up with a good and interesting story, it was possible that he could have made a movie that was something you could suffer through without having the overwhelming urge to stab your own eyes with a blunt toothpick.

That was before I saw his next movie: Udhabaani.

To be fair, I never read the book the movie was supposedly based on and after watching the movie any interest I might have had in reading said book quickly evaporated. However, after watching Udhabaani, I concluded once again that the problem here, too, was the story: it was just too idiotic. It never occurred to me then that the real problem was with how the story had been adapted into a screenplay. After all, there is a reason why Oscars are handed out to adapted screenplays in addition to original screenplays. They are both entirely different beasts and it takes a lot of talent and effort to tame either of them.

This then brings us to Baaraige Fas (After Midnight), Amjay’s latest attempt at dabbling in movies while his true calling for god-only-knows-what once again sails away into the mists of uncertainty. Even the name of the movie conjures up sleazy images of things you wouldn’t want to discuss in polite company and, sadly enough, the movie actually delivers in this regard as Baaraige Fas is the kind of er… thing you wouldn’t want to discuss in polite company, or any other kind of company for that matter. And especially not in the presence of any flowering plants – but we’ll get to that later.

When I heard that the movie was based on a story written by Binma Ibrahim Waheed, arguably the most popular author in the country at the moment, I actually, for a fleeting moment, had a slight hope that this could very well be the turning point in Amjay’s career. It sure was a short-lived thought.

Unlike most of Amjay’s movies, Baaraige Fas doesn’t begin with a totally irrelevant dance and song number. If you can survive that shock then you can probably survive the mind-numbingly boring six or so hours that follows. Did I say six hours? It might have been seven.

In ads and posters, the movie was promoted as a dark and atmospheric horror-movie but until that opening shot you really have no idea just how dark the movie would be. A large percentage of the scenes in the movie take place during night and a lot are shot inside darkened rooms. Piecing together what happens during these scenes would have taxed even Sherlock Holmes as it’s so dark the only thing you can see are eyeballs looking this way and that, or the occasional sparkle off someone’s teeth. Sometimes it felt like I was watching a Bugs Bunny cartoon where Bugs had lured Yosemite Sam into a lion cage and blown out his torch.

The short prologue before the opening credits accomplishes two things. It introduces us to the main characters – Nisha and her dad – and their diabolical and ridiculous late-night snack arrangement. The second thing it does is give the audience a subtle hint that the rest of the movie isn’t going to make much sense either.

In case it wasn’t obvious from the posters, Baariage Fas is a vampire movie, and the part of the temptress vampire is played by one of the most popular actresses in local movie history, Mariyam Nisha. For a comeback performance, I’m not sure if this particular role was what her fans had been expecting.

As the movie progresses, you realize that even though some of the things about the movie are very clear cut and conform to what is seen in most vampire movies, there are some things that just don’t make any sense. Since she’s a vampire it’s obvious she will drink blood but the movie never explains why she developed such a tacky sense of décor or why she sleeps in a room which has a huge horror-themed poster covering the entire wall behind her satin covered bed. The poster has dark apocalyptic clouds, lightning, sinister looking trees, and a disembodied hand thrusting up through the ground for no other reason than it looks extremely lame. My guess is that the poster is there for the benefit of those in the audience who has acute uptake-grasping deficiency and aren’t able to figure out immediately that they are watching a horror movie. Did I mention said bedroom is draped entirely in red diaphanous bed sheets and flimsy curtains?

Nisha’s origin story kicks in halfway through the movie, so all through the first half of the movie I had imagined that the story adhered to the usual vampire mythos; that Nisha must have been turned into a vampire by another vampire and that she possessed a variety of supernatural powers that would give her several advantages, both physically and mentally, over her intended victims. Colour me wrong on that assumption.

As far as I can tell from the movie, Nisha’s character was conceived by floral insemination.

Don’t bother reading that last sentence again, you read it correctly the first time and it won’t make any sense even if you read it a third time. Just go with me on this.

Nisha’s mother is your average barren housewife who has been married several years but has been unable to conceive a child with her husband. One fine night, as she’s dolling up to go out with her hubby to paint the town a few coats of crimson, she takes a moment to stop and smell the flowers in the garden. More specifically, she stops to smell a rose. As luck would have it, this was no ordinary rose. This specific rose perhaps was the floral equivalent to a convicted serial-rapist that had downed a cocktail of various steroids and Viagra.

Overcome by desire, possibly by the extreme proximity of the mother’s nostrils to its petals, the rose jumps her and, judging by the aftermath, repeatedly has its way with her without even a by-your-leave. Meanwhile, the husband notices that his wife is late and goes to investigate, only to find a thoroughly ravished future-mom smiling vacantly into space and spread-eagled on their bed. Rose petals litter the bed and the tangled, twisted bedsheets speak volumes of the passions of epic proportions unleashed there just moments before. Even though they didn’t show it in the movie, I suspect the amorous rose was casually smoking a cigarette right outside the bedroom door and just being awesome.

A short montage later Nisha is born and predictably she’s… different. For one thing she doesn’t want to drink milk but prefers blood. I could have understood it if she had craved water instead of milk – I mean plants need water after all – but blood? And unlike her um… biological father, Nisha develops an aversion to sunlight. Although it wasn’t depicted in the movie, it’s not too far-fetched to imagine that Nisha was also bitten by a radioactive John Travolta, Zack Efron or Govinda, which would explain why she also has the uncanny superpower to burst into song and drag her potential victim into an associated dance sequence. She also develops one other superpower: the amazing ability to laugh maniacally while her dad bops her potential victims, who she’s lured into the X-marks-the-spot position with the aforementioned song and dance number, on the head to incapacitate them. Last but not least, Nisha also has the innate ability to bring her sickly and aging father under her thrall, essentially turning him into a mindless zombie who wards off anyone who attempts to see or meet her during the day as she sleeps off a wild and hectic night, incapacitates her victims while she herself is indulging in uncontrollable fits of laughter at the very idea of being able to drink their blood, and cleans up her bloody mess afterwards.

A special mention should be made about Nisha’s ‘transformation’. Hollywood vampires usually look just like normal humans at first glance, except maybe a bit paler than most, but when it’s time to feed they go through some physical changes that will leave no doubt in anyone’s mind about their true nature. In majority of these transformations, out come the fangs or the trademark elongated canine teeth. The fangs come in handy for tearing out an exposed throat or wrist and is one of the most important weapons in any self respecting vampire’s arsenal. In Nisha’s case, however, indubitably owing to her unorthodox origin, instead of the classic fangs she sprouts something that can only be described as inverted tusks, not unlike the extra-long maxillary canines found on the extinct Smilodon, or sabre-toothed tiger. The only way she could hurt anyone with those things would be if she ran face-first into her victim and gored them somehow. As it is, she would probably stab herself in the chest with her own teeth if someone pointed near her feet and cried “Look! A gecko!”

The movie’s plot, or lack of same, is simple. Female vampire, with the assistance of her father and some killer (har har) dance moves, kills her friends and drinks their blood until intrepid reporter and love interest figures out the truth and decides to kill her. At which point the vampire decides to save him the trouble of killing her and exposes herself to... wait for it… moonlight! Yeah, you read that right: exposing herself to the moonlight turns her into… well, I suppose ‘dust’ would be the word but that’s really pushing the definition as the effect used for the shot was so lame it deserves special recognition in the Most Anachronistic Visual Effect Ever Made category. Of course, by the time this happens you’re hardly expecting anything in the movie to make sense so you just go with it and release a heartfelt sigh that the accursed thing had finally ended.

MNDF to make random arrests for security reasons

By Mohamed Headset

The Maldives National Defence Farce (YEMYENDEEYEFF) issued a statement today, stating that they were launching a special operation to arrest random people off the streets and at homes to be tested to see how accurately they could recall what the YEMYENDEYEFF building looks like.

“As you know it is highly illegal to take pictures of our top secret military headquarters near Sagarey Paak,” a Sargeont or Corporeal who was nearly keeling over under the weight of the medals on his chest and arms told Bakhabaru reporters. “It even says so right there on the wall and all our own cameras are pointed away from the building in case we accidently capture pictures or footage or our secret HQ. Some people seem to think the “No Cameras” sign on the wall means that they can’t use really old cameras to take pictures of the freaking wall but they would be wrong. We’ll eventually get around to changing the sign. This time we will include stylised designs of digital cameras and mobile phone cameras too. That should clear up any misconception.”

Leftinent Kernel Ahmed Ali said that the new program was launched after it was discovered that the dastardly Al Qaeda was secretly recruiting people with photographic memories to take mental pictures of the YEMYENDEEYEFF HQ and transfer the images to terror cells across the region. For what sinister purposes, they had not been able to verify yet, Ali said. The Leftinent Kernal also said that security check points all over Male’ would stop anyone who looked suspicious or too memorable, and subject them to a battery of memory recall tests to see if they were secretly hiding any images of the exterior of their HQ in their brains.

“Right now the tests are a bit crude, I admit, but once Maldives goes under the Indian security network, the Indians have promised to provide us with specialized portable X-Ray machines that will immediately target and acquire any images of our HQ that are hidden inside any brain,” Brigadaboombabyier Mohamed Allovame told Bakhabaru reporters. He went on to say that they were now in the process of acquiring the “memory wiping thingies” that were made popular in the Men In Black movies and that once they got a hold of “those handy little doodads” they would erase all stored images of their HQ from all brains.

“Our HQ will essentially disappear from memory and no one will know where to find it or where it is,” Leftinent Kernel Ahmed Ali. “In fact, I used a prototype of that on myself yesterday; which is why I am here in the public toilet giving this interview instead of at HQ which may or may not exist.”

A few weeks backs, Brigadaboombabyier Mohamed Allovame gave the Bakhabaru team an exclusive tour of YEMYENDEEYEFF’s exhaustive online database containing detailed profiles on all known and unknown criminals in Maldives. The online database, tentatively titled Facebook for now, contains detailed physical, psychological, and emotional profiles of almost anyone who is anyone in Maldives. The online database is available for everyone and can be accessed by directing your internet browser to http://www.facebook.com, Allovame said.

“The online database is constantly evolving and using some of the features we have been able to stop crimes before they even happen,” the Brigadaboombabyier said. “The future is now, boys and girls, and you better be ready for it. For example, we were monitoring the status updates of a suspect when we saw this message: ‘Nr target nw. ABt 2 brk lok on shp door. LOL!’. We immediately posted a reply saying: ‘whr r u dood? ROFL!’ Once we had the location it was child’s play to pick up the perp before he had managed to finish sending off his latest update which was: ‘suxess!! i’m rich bynd mah wildest dreems! LMAO!’”

The suspect had later updated his status message one last time with: “nw in handcuffs & guarded bi inept DPRS offishals. LOL!”

The IT team at YEMYENDEEYEFF had also developed a sneaky Facebook app called “Have you seen the YEMYENDEEYEFF building, the YEMYENDEEYEFF building, the YEMYENDEEYEFF building?” to weed out any suspicious people. The app is now ready to be circulated to users to identify any potential leaks, the Brigadaboombabyier said.

A Bakhabaru photographer was dispatched to take a picture of the YEMYENDEEYEFF HQ to include in this article. He was last seen surrounded by several YEMYENDEEYEFF officers who were checking the contents of his drawers. Right there on Sagarey Paak.