Dream Seller
"I'm a dream seller," Ahmad Yassin tells me in between selling lottery tickets to locals at the Port Louis Central Market.
Sitting barefoot in his little stall, he recalls his sailing days - visiting Singapore in the 70s and watching a movie at Lido, arriving in Chile the day Pinochet was overthrown, watching Bob Marley in London, and chasing the dragon in Thailand (must have been 90% pure, Mon).
But the way he tells it, Mauritian society isn't as harmonious as the tourism industry would like us to believe.
"We are divided. Overseas we say we are Mauritian, but back home we go by labels - like me, everyone looks at me as Muslim. But I haven't gone to the mosque in years."
People hardly intermarry, while he bucked the trend by marrying a Tamil (Hindu) woman.
I nod knowingly.
Religion doesn't work for Yassin, who at 67 is perhaps qualified to make a judgement on his own long life.
