Malawi's over-excitement over Bingu's wedding

Ten wedding songs composed and still counting! Even comedian Winiko, whose real name is Bon Kalindo, has thrown away the comedian mantle to become musician. Reason? 78-year old Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika is getting married again and the excitement is reaching fever-pitch.

I have interacted with Calista, the First Lady designate, several times. She is a great lady. Once - five years ago to be precise - we were bound to travel to Libya togther. (Muammar Gaddafi used to invite me a lot then. You see, Gaddafi is a writer. I have a collection of short stories written by him.He likes writers in his company. He can move mountains to accommodate writers. Once I squeezed the name of my friend, Idriss Ali Nassah, to join us on a visit to Libya. We were even sponsored to see the Egyptian pyramids at Giza, an hour's drive from Cairo on the Ramses Road. Idriss still wonders to this day what, exactly, did the Libyan government invite us for, but I am digressing too much. That is a story for another day.) Owing to an article I wrote in the Daily Times in 2005 after meeting Gaddafi at his tent in the desert in his home town of Sirte, I did not know that the embassy in Malawi had declared me persona-non-grata without the knowledge of their top officials in Libya. For this reason, I failed to join Calista on the trip to Libya. I met her at Ryalls when she came back. She told me how scary the Libyan drivers sped from Tripoli to Sirte, a distance of 400km. You see,when you arrive in Libya, you find a Benz waiting for you, complete with a chauffeur. Naturally, the chauffeur speaks no English. He shoots off like a stone from a catapult on their beautiful roads. Calista told me about her dilemma: "How do I tell this driver to slow down?" We laughed when she mentioned about her attempts to express herself through pantomime.

I last met Calista when we flew together from OR Tambo International Airpot in Johannesburg to Lilongwe (was that 2007? Yes, I think it was). She was minister then. She is humble, charming and motherly. She is great company. Not many ministers would have mixed easily with the crowd of my kind (I mean loud-mouthed using the pen). Ministers in Malawi behave like small little gods, until, like Nebuchadnezzar, God later on reminds them that they are human.

While I certainly wish Calista well in the wedding, I will not sit down to compose a poem. I would regard that an abuse of the art. In Malawi, there are some so-called writers who will write nothing until there is a John Chilembwe Day, or until a famous man has died, or when the Mother's Day is approaching. They hastily assemble some lines which they believe can pass for "poems" and pass on these to the papers. Considering the ever-lowering standards for acceptance of literary articles at our newspapers, the editors still pass these for poetry and publish them.

The same is happening with our musicians and non-musicians of the Winiko type. Perhaps in an attempt to jockey for attention before the President, they are throwing their artistic discipline to hastily compose songs of praise. After the wedding this weekend, their songs shall have become obsolete. I wish these artists well. We cannot all share the same principles.

It is not only the musicians whose excitement has reached orgasmic levels . . . [Sorry, my friend has kindly requested me to remove this bit of the earlier post. Thanks].