THE COLOUR OF LOVE
BY REUBEN ABATI
LOVE, such a simple word. So easy to pronounce. So loaded with meaning.
Love is, I am willing to bet on this, one of the earliest words each one
of us learnt to identify and use. As early as the age of one, many of us
had started saying, I love Mummy, I love Daddy. Daddy, do you love
Mummy? and as we grew up, we encountered love in different contexts of
social meaning. Love, it occurred to us, is an expression of friendship or
affection and to love someone is to care for that person genuinely and
selflessly. Boy-girl relationships and father-mother-child interactions
all seem to be based on love. Girls insist that a boyfriend must prove his
seriousness by saying I love you. Boys also implore their girlfriends to
reciprocate affection.
Those who design greeting cards and gift items use love more than any
other word in the English vocabulary. Enter a supermarket and attempt an
inventory of the phrasal inscriptions on the items on display and youd be
surprised at the rate at which love pops out from every nook and
cranny. And the word rarely stands naked, it is usually clothed with
action in form of a kiss, a peck, a gift or a hug. Love is also a magical
expression. Tell a person you love him or her and watch how he or she
would melt and smile. Love is a term of endearment. It suggests peace,
relaxation and happiness.
Men have used it to open doors. The mere mention of it evokes a soft aura
and delightful tones.
All my life, I've been surrounded by love and Ive used and experienced the
word more than many people I know. All women who have loved me would
surely testify to this. Love is, for me, an ideal which must be cultivated
and nurtured. It is one of the very few words I use without
pre-meditation, frills or second thoughts. This is perhaps because of my
Sunday school background.
As a kid, I went to church every Sunday; sometimes everyday. My parents
insisted on this. Every Sunday, my brothers and I would wear our bottom
boxes and troop to our church. And while the elderly ones worshipped in
the main church; we were taken to the church hall where church officials,
led by one Mr. Agunbiade, taught us the scriptures and Christian
morals. That was Sunday school an extension of our regular Monday-Friday
school. Sunday school was very interesting. Mr. Agunbiade illustrated the
scriptures with songs, colour photographs of Noahs Ark; Moses and the ten
commandments, the feeding of five thousands, the Sycamore tree, etc, and
also, of course, with hard knocks on the head for sluggards.
Mr. Agunbiade was a strict disciplinarian and many of us who passed
through him would, I believe, cherish memories of our days with him at
Sunday school. We learnt a lot from him and love was indeed his favourite
word. He delighted in referring us to passages of the Bible which stress
the importance of love and often, he asked us to memorise such passages. I
still remember First Corinthians 13:1-13 as our main catechism on
love. Love, we were told, is patient, love is kind and is not
jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act
unbecomingly, it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take
into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness but
rejoices with the truth; bears all things, endures all things. Love never
fails.
We were instructed to live by these injunctions in our future lives. We
were kids, but the church had high hopes. It was only our age that kept us
from knowing why so much premium had to be placed on us and love.
I soon found out. When I got to the secondary school, it so happened that
I joined the clique of young boys who thought that the only way to
announce ones coming of age was to acquire a girlfriend. Having a
girlfriend then was a major achievement and we all worked hard at it. I
was a very shy boy (I still am) and I could hardly talk to a girl for five
minutes (I am still like that). But nature compensated me by giving me a
wild imagination and the gift of prose. With these two talents, I wrote
numerous love letters to girls. I composed poems for my heartthrobs. I
also served as a letter writer for my more courageous but less eloquent
friends. I carried this habit with me till as far as Graduate
school. Thank God, I no longer write love letters. But
while I did, I fantasized about love and sought to make ladies happy with
lines that I considered amorous. You know the type of lines I am talking
about. I have taken a trip to the sea and it is your face I see in the
bowels of Oluweri. Such youthful nonsense!
Maturity however imposes different methods of loving. There are men who
speak of love through gifts, exotic attires, candle lights and hasty trips
to London or the Bar beach. Parents also adopt different expressions of
love as a child grows older. Love is an institution; a major landmark of
our existence as human beings.
Yet, I am disturbed. I am deeply worried by the alarming fact that love
seems to have taken on a new colour. Perhaps, such has indeed always been
the case.
The spirit of First Conrinthians 13 seems to have been abandoned and love
is now, a goddess worshipped only at the tip of the tongue. Relationships
collapse nowadays like the house that Thomas built. Hate has become the
bedmate of love. I look around. Two lovers suddenly turn against each
other and what we celebrate is not the preservation of love but the
triumph of divorce.
A man catches his girlfriend with another man and flares up. In his anger,
he loses his senses and throws a bowl of acid in his girls face. Isnt love
supposed to be patient?
A man dies in his mid-youth under mysterious circumstances. The whole
community is shocked as it mourns the decapitation of yet another
promising life. The family of the deceased is expected to be genuinely
aggrieved. But no. The reverse is the case. Rather than morn the loss of
their relation, the family chooses to quarrel over his estate. The dead is
immediately forgotten. Why does love fail when it matters most?
A man and a woman profess love to each other and they go to the altar to
take the solemn oath: for better, for worse. Two years later, the woman is
yet to conceive. The man abandons her and takes another wife. Where has
all the love gone?
A girl meets a dashing, promising young man, and she sticks to him hoping
to be the mother of his children, she showers him with gifts and
affection. Soon, she meets a richer and more comfortable suitor and she
sacks her former lover. Isn't love supposed to endure all things?
These scenes abound in our society like the montage of a film show and I
am worried. I doubt if I would again believe whoever tells me he or she
loves me. For, I have discovered that love is a mask which hides other
motives and the moment these are fulfilled, hate replaces love. Man has
become an actor in the tragicomedy of love: what you see is not what is
real; you can only survive the enactment emotionally, if you learn to
suspend disbelief. Love has become a vanishing ideal. It has taken on the
colour of greed, hate, treachery and materialism. Too bad. The
agony. Ha! Tamuno. The agony!!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask]
if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
