As I begin, there’s something distinctly odd about blogging like this from the paradise islands of Seychelles, even for a writer.
One reason is that blogging’s still a bit too ‘au sec’ for me, and then there’s always something more compelling to do in this land of mind-blowing panoramas of dappled sapphire ocean lapping virgin forests untouched since the dawn of Time. Primal Nature beckons at each instant of the day, inviting you to the ocean or forests for a peek at how, long ago, the planet must have looked in its innocence.
Don’t get me wrong; writing here is hugely inspiring and I like the the extreme of having the awesome natural beauty of the islands as a backdrop for the suspense and adventure I write about, either in my collection of short stories, ‘Voices’, or my more recent historical thriller, ‘Kolony’. For me, that juxtaposition works…and Seychelles, for a while, becomes my very own playground for dark ideas and new perspectives.
Thirty years ago, who would have imagined that I would have been faced with such a dilemma? Certainly not me! Back then I was living in Iran where my parents had taken me while I was still very young and which was destined to become, until today, my spiritual home.
This, as opposed to my genetic home – England: land of my forebears, about which I retain a certain curiosity and misplaced nostalgia – perhaps for those unborn stirrings of patriotism and sense of belonging which is supposed to take root in an Englishman somewhere amid those green fields and church spires but which, in my case, never did.
Instead, I fled the Iranian Revolution, (which was the very first falling domino to usher in three decades of Middle Eastern instability which persists until today, despite the naive belief entertained by some about an Arab Spring) and came to fair Seychelles.
Back then, these sparkling island jewels were still slumbering the deep sleep of ages, lost in a universe of ocean and barely stirring from their olde worlde island ways to heed an ever-so-slowly, encroaching world. Sadly, all that has changed..and continues to change on a daily basis, but that is Life and t’was ever thus, I guess.
And so now I am here, a definite part of the furniture in a region of the world I might never even have visited, much less inhabited or adopted as my native land… but for the wings of some butterflies beating above the smouldering deserts of Iran all those decades ago. (TBC)
