The Hues Of Mauritius

The alchemy of the air in Mauritius lends it the status of a premier romantic destination. We fly down to the African island with Bollywood diva Kiara Advani and get enchanted by its mysticism.

- Rashima Nagpal

Dina Arobi, Ihla do Cirné, Maurice, the Land of the Dodo, and finally, Mauritius—the beauty of the island nation is as varied as its nomenclature.

Civilisation knocked on its door only six centuries ago and yet it dons layers of intriguing history. A series of invaders—from the Arabs and the Portuguese to the Dutch, French, and British—has transformed it into a potpourri of cultures. Freedom in 1968 unfurled the wings this paradisiacal island was born with.

Its sublime outskirts, with white sands melting into turquoise waters and rivers foaming into the sea, need no introduction. But Mauritius’s bosom is just as swell. Until recently, a stunning 90 per cent of the country’s verdant landscape was made up of sugarcane fields. With the fluctuations in its economy, other crops have been introduced, but even so, the air smells sweet round the year.

Far from the energetic capital of Port Louis, we head towards Bel Ombre on the exotic southern coast of the country, where Heritage Le Telfair Golf & Wellness Resort awaits the arrival of our pack of 10. As we pass through unending fields of sugarcane and some bucolic hamlets, I question the lull on a Monday afternoon. Our host jokingly pins it on the lazy nature of lunch hours for Bengalis (she is one herself), and inadvertently gives us insight into Mauritius’s cultural landscape. The heterogenous demography of the country comprises Indian-origin Hindus, Creolespeaking Africans, Franco-Mauritians, Chinese-Mauritians, and a community of Indians, including Tamil, Telugu, and Bengali diasporas. It is equal parts baffling and fascinating to land in a rather compact foreign country where the language varies from one street to the next.