LOVE WITHOUT HOPE

Mon, 16 Oct 2017 11:25:45 +0000

By Simon Kulusika

The title of this article is “Love Without Hope”. It is adapted from the Poem of Robert Graves (1895 – 1985 having the same title “Love Without Hope”, and fits the account to be sketched under. It depicts the story of each of the four characters who were caught up in varying degrees of romance. They will be represented as R, M and P and S. R: Romantic, M: Melancholic P: Pathetic and S: Bunkum. One common thread between them was that they lived their time, loved their numerous girls, and at the end cost all.

R: was the class-mate of this writer. He was active in class asking all sort of questions, even on matters that could be described as straight forward. He would raise doubts on the presentation of teachers and would engage them until told to shut up and sit down.

R: was moody. When outside class-room he would sit in the scorching heat with his hand on his head as if mourning the dead. When he was inquired about this, his answer would be startling: ‘I am mediating about my loved one, my girl-friend in that remote part of Southern Sudan’, as South Sudan was then known. ‘

I do not know what is happening there. I wish I were a bird, I would fly there and have a nice romantic moment, before returning to this desolate hostel’. His class-mates, including this writer would advise him to take it easy, to abandon the song of melancholy and to endure the fury of being far away from one’s dame.

Before long, R received unpleasant missive from his cousin who was working at a district headquarters about 100 km from the village where R’s dame was residing. The missive was a real missive in which the messenger did not beat round the bush. It was brief and telling: ‘An officer in the Anya Nya has eloped with your dame, without trace’. ‘Anya Nya’ was a military wing to the Southern Sudan Liberation Movement led by Col Joseph Lagu that signed a peace agreement with the government of Sudan in 1072, known as the Addis Ababa Agreement.

R was thunder struck by the news, and he dropped to the ground, rolled over violently, shouting at the top of his voice, as if waling for a deceased relative member. His condition deteriorated rapidly and he began to show signs of psychotic disorder. He was admitted to hospital for two weeks. After discharge from hospital, he travelled home vowing to trace her dame’s where-abouts. He was never seen again at the school.

The story of M was rather bizzare to say the least. He confided to this writer that he had many girl-friends and other girls he described as ‘merely acquaintances’. He told the writer, despite the fact he had many girl-friends, no one of them had promised to marry him. He said, ‘frankly speaking, I am not popular with those girls and other women’.

He continued ‘some of them described me as not being lustral, or not undimmed. Whilst others claimed that I was heavy- going, an insidious individual, unable to make a good husband’. Then he shouted loudly, ‘Halai what should I do to convince those women that I can be trusted? Please, I cannot buy pleasantness’.

The problem of M, apart from being melancholic, he tried to set high standards of socialization, even for female friends. He was told that there was nothing to advise him about. That time would work miracles for him and he would find a woman who would suit his life style. They would live together and love one another with hope in a sublime home.

As regards P who could be described as pathetic in terms of his relationship with women and men. He had no permanent girl-friends let alone boy-friends. He was described in differing adjectives, some are pugent, such as, parasitic, portentous, pugnacious, purgatory, sententious, idiosyncratic, and paranoid. Because, he believed that someone is out there to harm him or to create problems for him. When he was at school, he used to wash his school uniform every day after returning to the dormitory. He spent hours ironing the pressing his clothes to remove the slightest wrinkles on them. When he was offered drink by a girl or a friend, he would shake the glass vigorously, lifted it up and examined it carefully. He would sip a glass of water in about an hour to the displeasure of the host.

One of P’s girl-friends told the writer that she did not like the way P behaved, that was going to ditch him. That was what befell P. One day he went to visit that girl. He was prevented from entering into the house. He was ordered to get lost as quickly as possible, as the girl was not ready to deal with people afflicted by phobia.

The last of the characters was S. He was admired by his class-mates because he was good in long- distance race and basketball. But most of his girlfriends described him as unskillful in dance. Another one described him as a bungling dancer who was good only for books. She shouted this floundering boy, ‘I wished I had not known him. Even the father of one of the girls told her daughter ‘You will not marry that boy(s) who has no foot-steps’. In fact, this outburst brought an end to their relationship. It was Love Without Hope.

Whatever a person’s character, he or she has peculiar potentials that should not be over-showed by his phobia, or idiosyncracy. He should be loved, with the hope that he shall change in character.

Men and women should love one another, and make living a song of joy and make their sun to shine. Life must be made glorious even in time of hardship and anguish: William Blake wrote:

For where e’er the sun does shine, And where e’er the rain does fall, Babe can never hunger there,
Nor poverty the mine appall.

All of us must have a Garden of Love. But when Love is Lost, it is never the end of the journey in life. Wonderful!!

the author is Associate Professor at Zambian Open University LUSAKA