Realistic Guy

By Baba Galleh Jallow

Our little town was not entirely unblessed when it came to having some 
really prominent citizens. Indeed, it was in the domain of citizenship that 
most of our prominent big wigs dazzled our senses with their wit and wisdom, 
which, thankfully, they were never loathe to share with our less endowed 
common townsfolk. It was no surprise at all that in our little town, there 
was a common saying that at least one common folk got wiser every single 
day. And this is in no small measure attributable to the great wisdom of one 
of our most prominent citizens, Alhaji Doctor Choot Choot Hapati, commonly 
known in our little town as the Realistic Guy on account of his mastery of 
the art and science of realism in all their loaded complexities.

Now Alhaji Doctor Choot Choot Hapati was no little guy in our little town. 
Indeed, we could safely say that he was no ordinary big wig in our little 
town. We just stop short of saying that our little town is almost unworthy 
of the presence of this great guy who was so wise we sometimes thought he 
was the sun itself come down to earth, walking on two feet and talking with 
its mouth. For not only was Alhaji Doctor Choot Choot Hapati a great natural 
orator and myth booster, he was also an eminently learned person, a 
veritable guru of ancient wisdom and a bitter cola of modern learning, to 
borrow a prominent metaphor from our little town. Well versed in all the 
categories of subtle wisdom with which the very fabric of our local customs 
are woven, Dr. Choot Choot Hapati was also highly educated in the wisdoms of 
the modern world: he held a Bachelor of Fats in Rope Dragging from Whig 
University, a Masters degree in Swashbuckling from the famous university of 
No Teach, and to cap it all, a dazzling Doctorate of Robosophy in Real 
Techniques from the world famous university of No Contest Upon Find, which 
was why he was given the honorable nickname of Realistic Guy and why our 
common townsfolk simply adored him.

Fortunately for our common townsfolk, Dr. Choot Choot Hapati was not one to 
lose an opportunity to teach less endowed folks a thing or two about life. 
And he found a perfect opportunity to do this by developing his own personal 
philosophy of being a realistic guy. What plopped out of the fertile mind of 
our great doctor and bloomed into the sunny airs of our little town was 
nothing less than a brand new realistic philosophy of life which he aptly 
called, without any unnecessary fanfare, the indubitable philosophy of 
Lestek. Our common townsfolk never tired of gathering around the great Dr. 
Choot Choot to hear him expound aspects of his dazzling new philosophy with 
the hope that they would go home at the end of the day if only a teeny weeny 
bit wiser than they were when they arrived. And good lord all of mercy! Our 
great doctor never failed to deliver!

Dr. Choot Choot Hapati was a kind and generous soul, and as such, he always 
began his lectures with a wide and benign smile which never failed to warm 
the gullible hearts of our simple-minded townsfolk. Having smiled every one 
into a cozy comfort zone, Dr. Choot Choot Hapati would then proceed to 
deliver one of his memorable discourses on the art and science of being 
realistic. And being the ultimate master of jargon, Dr. Choot Choot would 
always begin by citing the ancient aphorism that of course, you could only 
learn about realism if you were yourself real and that our common townsfolk 
were indeed real because he could see them with his own two real eyes as 
well as his two unreal ones perched academically on his nose in the form of 
his famous reading glasses.

“But even my glasses are real, I can say,” he would wisely pout. “But some 
of ya wouldn’t know that, would ya, because you will say because the glasses 
are not made of life and blood, they therefore are not real.” Such a clever 
statement always elicited a long drone of hmn – hmn and several nods of 
enlightenment from his doting audience. Whereby Dr. Choot Choot Hapati would 
proceed to tell them what exactly it means to be a realistic guy.

“Ya see,” he would say, tilting his head to one side. “Sometimes I want to 
tilt my head like this, or like this, or bend it like this, or look at the 
heavens like this. But then I will ask myself; I’ll say Choot Choot wait a 
minute. Which of these postures do you really think is realistic? And then I 
would say Choot Choot you gotta be kidding me! And you know why I say that, 
because to be a realistic guy you have to know where exactly your head is 
tilted at every single moment of the day without even asking. It doesn’t 
matter whether you are sleeping or walking. If y’all sit and forget that 
there is a head on your shoulders, or that it is tilted this way or the 
other, then y’all are seriously out of touch with reality.” Our amazed 
common townsfolk would utter shrill cries of admiration, loudly groan their 
undying approval, and shake their heads many, many times as another 
invaluable piece of realistic wisdom sunk into their heads. Thus encouraged, 
a beaming Dr. Choot Choot Hapati would continue.

“But I am not saying that to be a realistic guy you have to be arrogant and 
boastful. I actually got a masters degree in swashbuckling and I can tell 
you that to be arrogant is both part of being a realistic guy and is not 
part of being a realistic guy. Because you see, to be a realistic guy you 
have to be able to be both here and there and elsewhere AT THE SAME TIME. 
And that is crucial – the ability to be everywhere AT THE SAME TIME. Because 
this means that you have to do something that is both impossible and yes, 
possible, even easy: You have to grow additional feet with which to stand on 
multiple ground at the same moment, additional mouth with which to speak, 
additional eyes with which to see, and yes, additional hands with which to 
shake worthy hands and slap unworthy ones. But of course, this stuff is far 
too advanced for y’all. So I will have to explain further next time. For 
now, just remember this: to be realistic guy, you have to eat your bread but 
still have it, as the Englishman would say.”

Such a dizzying analysis of his philosophy of Lestek would send our common 
townsfolk staring wildly around and exclaiming heh! heh! heh! Did you hear 
what Dr. Choot said? Heh! This guy is really educated! Heh!

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE! 
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html

To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤