CREATIVE CORNER: Pastoral Redemptions by Chat Ishaya

The rainy days are here again, my season of purple parch. The very season when fading trees wear bright new dresses, when plants spring and bloom, when the blazing sun blesses us tenderly and when the farmer begins to smile again. And like the butterfly flaps it seemingly weightless wings and perches on blooming yellow daffodils, so does my deflated spirit. Spirit that now soars high, chanting a new song with title of wholeness and chorus of laughter.

Away from the blatant harshness of the city and it unforgiving stink of jungle strife, raw vulgarism, blaring noise and vortices of pollution; I found solace in the uncompromising tranquility and undertone beauty of my village, Madakiya. Under the thatched cottage that shielded us from the morning sun, I sat mute on stretched logs amidst warm hearted idle men sipping from calabashes brimming with fresh undiluted palm-wine, listening to conversations adorned with proverbs and sagacious meaning- men I had thought were futile with no ambition.

I walked for a mile and half trailing the railway that led me to a cascading water fall known as ‘River Wonderful’. It flow was a magnificent sight with it impulsive whiteness whiter than white. It roaring sound as it quickly runs down into deeper depth was strident. Clouds of fog had raised above the waters engulfing it entity while birds of colour flew round and above this striking ambience like a halo. It was all a magical void and I felt entwined and redeemed by it.

I was humbled and later irritated by the consistent stares from
passers-by and strangers, stooping and smiling as they rain down hearty greetings full of repetition. ‘Sannu’, welcome. They kept saying in a near chorus for more than a dozen times (no pun intended) and I kept nodding and smiling profusely that my jaw hurt. On the faces of the young, untrimmed beauty of my country girls with braless and pointed breast, I did not fail to catch the lustful gaze in their eyes.

I was redeemed at night when we all sat around the fire and hummed melodious songs with every word written on our faces, songs of hope, of death, of love and lost. I was redeemed by the ambivalent tears that stole it way from my grandmother’s blind eyes. I was redeemed by my great grandmother’s folklores that remind us again of who we are, of our humanity and of a onetime innocuous and chaste people. Her stories resonates clairvoyance dotted with mild imagery and poetic diction in my native Bajju language. I was redeemed by the angry rain that later drummed upon the rusted aluminum roof as I lay in bed and stared at the oil lamp that hung tirelessly on the rain stained wall and burned generously illuminating not just my reading desk but the shadowed corners of my mind.

Here, I am at peace.

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