Whistling and Sniffing Simultaneously

Whistling and sniffing at the same time

Can’t hold hands or rather get married

United and collaborative in any case

This duo may perhaps land into the life of some person

The kind of man whose who acts,

Performs duties of the shepherd on the flock.

Like his initial master,

He condemns wickedness,

Goes against what is religiously evil,

And exults the righteous.

But he soon he craves for another pair of his robe

For he does accumulate an avalanche of resources,

His eyes are soon blinded.

Would his robe evade being soiled?

Co-operative sniffing and whistling,

Can hatch into temptations to anybody,

Even the half-human, half God

Did he not get tested in the wilderness?

Our big man opens his eyes one day,

Finds himself campaigning and competing for,

Trying to woo for citizens’ keys,

Essentials for serving the people in a wider circle.

Perhaps his whistling guides his path.

Brings him in the companionship of

Other servants of the people.

Any devoted service present in that house really?

Brotherly whistling and sniffing,

May make one’s conscience slither backwards,

Two or more steps into mud.

He is now influential,

A famous societal figure.

His fat salary seconded with some allowances.

Or even thirded with public developmental resources,

Guarantees him total luxury.

Is this not an opportunistic opportunist?

Our Sniffer and whistler is contended,

Complacent with his success.

Jubilant with him servant is his ‘first Master ’

For keeping to the ‘sacred’ scriptures.

The vehicle which carried him straight,

One way to heaven gets crippled,

It can’t manage to hit the road

Like its American, British and Chinese counterparts,

His sincere promise goes unfulfilled

Unmet due to his pretentious pretence

His ‘second’ Master gets extremely mad.

For loyalty and faithfulness denied.

And furiously plucks him from glory.

Simultaneous whistling and sniffing,

The ‘initial’ heaven can’t simply put up with them.

A wise servant of the masses

A true leader should only whistle at a time,

Sniff at a time.

But not sniffing and whistling simultaneously.

Alice Munro - A Woman of Big Words

10^th July 1931; this is the year on which the currently worldly acclaimed Canadian writer, Alice Munro, was born as Alice Ann Laidlaw, in Wingham, Ontario. Munro started writing while in teenage, with her “The Dimensions of a shadow” (a short fiction) getting published in 1950. By then, she was an English and Journalism student at the University of Western Ontario. 
She left the institution in 1951 to marry James Munro, a colleague student. The couple in 1963 opened Munro’s Books at Victoria, which is still in full operation.

Alice Munro’s career as a writer kicked off in 1968. Her first highly-celebrated short story collection, Dance of the Happy Shades, won the Governor General’s Award. This is the most prestigious literary award in Canada. Lives of Girls and Women followed this triumphant publication in 1971. The collection contains intertwined tales occasionally mistakenly described to be a novel.

          Alice Munro with one of her short story collections

In 1978, she once again penned an anthology of related stories published in the USA entitled; The Beggar Maid: Stories of Flo and Rose.  This publication earned her another Governor General’s Award. Alice Munro, in 1980, she spent time as a writer at both the University of Queensland and the University of British Columbia. 

Her short stories have frequently appeared in publications like The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, Grand Street, Mademoiselle and The Paris Review.  Munro’s works benefitted translation into thirteen diverse languages. On 10^th October 2013, Munro was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the world’s highest literary prize a writer would dream to bag.  

Munro’s stories have Huron County, Ontario as their setting. One of her fiction’s characteristics is strong regional concentration. She has been compared to Chekov as for her time obsession and her prospect of her works addressing issues relating to labour and love, and the failures of both.

A common theme of her writings – notably apparent in her initial works – has been certain contradictions growing girls and familiarizing themselves with their families and their hometowns.

Alice married James Munro in1951. And the couple were blessed with three daughters; Sheila, Catherine, and Jenny – born in 1953, 1955, and 1957 respectively. Catherine passed away several hours after successful birth.  Another daughter, Andrea was born in 1966, replacing the then already deceased Catherine.

The couple went their separate ways in 1972.  In 1976, Alice married a photographer, Gerald Fremlin, whom she had interacted with in campus.  Fremlin died on 17^th April 2013, aged 88. Despite this misfortune, Alice Munro’s pen has never run out of ink. Apparently it might not do so as her legacy would forever retain its drive in the minds, hearts and souls of many a writer.

Mum's Sugar Girl - Section the First

The red-coloured dress I used to wear, which would run down to sweep the soil as I walked, would assure me of elegance. My figure would be well formed with the waist and chest protruding few inches away. Everyone – my classmates, friends, and my mother would complement my beautifulness as being superior to that of my two sisters, although they were all in college, where you have to considerably care about your looks. Even my CRE teacher would encourage me to take part in the township’s monthly beauty context.

Mum was the kind of a woman every child would have liked to be associated with. She could instill the spirit of academic excellence in me- from teaching me how to write with a stub of the forefinger of my right hand to narrating “hare and hyena” stories. From nursery school to class eight, I was a bright pupil with an ambition of throwing myself into books. And emerge with a favourable grade which would open the door for university.

During these days, mum could ensure that my knees got used to the carpeted floor of my room – and my fingers meditatively caressed my Holy Rosary for God’s interference. The heavens didn’t frustrate my efforts. A positive answer materialised and I joined the university. Here, life proved to be containing both sugar and pepper. Mum wasn’t around to tell me to take heart for she would buy me some fried chicken in town, at chicken fries. Only fellow students who didn’t care – boys who were ready to strangle each other in competition of her ‘fresh’ thighs. The books and all the exams were also threatening to shatter my brains. However, my grandmother’s persistent spirit encouraged me to bear it all.

Days swept by into months, which gave birth to and found me in second year. By now, I had developed into a ‘Bathsheba’. If David would have seen me, he would of course have taken me as a concubine – if not a wife. Really beautiful I was in my favourite ‘pencil’ trouser pairs, high-heeled shoes – the kind we used to call “no hurry in Africa.” My France-based uncle used to import sweet scented perfume for me. And I which I regularly applied. Its scent would mostly sneak into everybody’s nose.

However, despite this splendour, I had a feeling of lacking something. Several of my friends were juggling learning and working. Not that I lacked in anything. Mum was there for me. In fact I had the freedom – as free as the birds of the air – to do whatever my heart desired. Severally would I welcome my boyfriends in the house. I became the proverbial chicken which couldn’t stay with a single cock. My agricultural basics lecturer often used to say that it’s the ripe tomatoes which buyers go for.

My ripeness, like bees to roses, attracted lots of buyers to me. “They are sugar carriers, let them come to my home,” mum would happily remark when the visitors came, and sonny was barking and threatening to spill blood. After, leaving, mum’s pockets half-full of money and other sugary items, she would tell me; “Sweetie, you are just as opportunistic as your mum. You are a true daughter of your mother.”
I knew that mum would be ready to do anything for me – even if it meant cutting off one of her fingers. Even when my eldest sister accused mum of “baby-sitting and pampering me,” mum stood by me. With a momentary laughter, she cemented that a last born must be brought up well. (Story continues later)

©2013 Peter Ngila

Ngugi's Literary Fame Deserved

First appeared on the Saturday Nation of 9^th November 2013, page 32 entitled; “Ngugi wa Thiongo’s Fame Well Deserved”

Ngugi is a celebrity in Kenya due to his literary works and experience. It takes a lot of devotion for one to write a whole novel for the public. Ngugi’s Devil on the Cross is dedicated to “all Kenyans fighting against the final stages of neocolonialism.” I completely disagree with Clement Omondi’s remarks on Saturday 21/9/2013 that Ngugi wa Thiong’o does not deserve his fame and his works “read like funeral announcements with nothing to keep the reader glued”.

In Decolonising the Mind, he confirms his care for and solidarity with the common man. On page 72, he questions; “I knew whom I was writing about, but who was I writing for?” Therefore, he switched from English to African languages for the people to understand his writings. Ngugi deals with human oppression and revolution in colonial and neocolonial Kenya. He appeals for Kenyan unity, something I think should guarantee him this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature. He even campaigned for the people’s rights through theatre when, with Ngugi wa Mirii, he penned in Gikuyu the play, Ngahiika Ndenda – I will Marry When I Want – which the people occasionally acted at Kamiriithu Community Education and Cultural Centre in Limuru. The play faced stiff opposition from the Moi government due to its exposure of mistreatment of the poor by the rich. Although residing in the USA, Ngugi wa Thiong’o still writes in Gikuyu.

Ngugi’s works are attractive to the reader due to their high degree of creativity, well-used biblical allusion, tradition and culture, African forms of literature, satire and humour, vivid description, flashbacks, good character development, a mixture of regular and irregular plots etc. 

Omondi’s claim that Ngugi’s Weep Not Child is a copy of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is also misplaced. A son imitates his father in cementing the house’s prosperity. Ngugi simply followed Achebe’s fatherly lead in projecting the African continent through the pen. African division under European colonialists was naturally what linked Ngugi with Achebe, then an unavoidable theme, even today. Furthermore, just like Achebe, Ngugi colonised European literature by incorporating western essentials (like Marxism) in his works to tell of the African situation in the African way. Before judging Ngugi’s literary expertise and fame, it’s wise to exclusively and meditatively read all his works and biography in relation to the development of the Kenyan society.

© Peter Ngila, 2013