How good is your heart?
Bongi D D M Radipati | Monday May 15, 2023 06:00
Anyhow one considers it, bread is the most mentioned or consumed foodstuff in almost every major faith. At times bread is shared as a symbol of fellowship and collective worship.
At other times, bread’s base, wheat, is a metaphor for salvation and the chaff, a metaphor for damnation. And bread, or variations of it, is typically consumed at breakfast, that most vital meal of the day. All these must tell us something significant about bread.
But bread also appears as a solution in search of a problem.
In popular media, we are never told that some youngster learnt how to cook by helping their father cook (say pounded meat (seswaa)) or their mother cook (say chicken or beef stew.) (In truth, we must still bless the youngsters for skipping these home lessons!) Instead we are often told that a youngster learnt how to cook by having helped their mother bake.
Like all good food, bread will become a memorable meal only when it is viewed in reverse. Think about the choice of ingredients, the preparation thereof and the effort of baking and serving all of which precede the cakes, cookies, scones, muffins, cupcakes, biscuits, etc. that we ultimately consume at home. The consumption may have come about not so much because we had a problem of hunger, but probably because some youngster was learning how to cook! Perhaps it was only a matter of time before we realized that the best way to learn culinary skills was to make home meals, most likely with mother. And seeing how forward looking that lesson was, you would have to be heartless not to be moved by it and impervious to the timeless adage “Mother knows best...”
Unlike that of last year, the 2021 Oscar’s prizes event was bereft of any drama! This was so even though it too was the occasion to recognize those victorious from the annual tournament of achievement in cinematic arts. Noteworthy however was that a 73 year old, the first Korean to win an Academy award and a mother, Yuh-Jung Youn, won the best supporting actress award at that ceremony. She won it for her role in the movie, Minari. By it and a few others before it, over the years, Asia has steadily succeeded in convincing Western minds that it need not be seen merely as a place for exoticism, seduction and adventure (in other words, the orientalism of Edward W Said), but truly as a place where cinema’s most talented makers, actors and actresses can be found. Without giving away too much of it here, the movie is about an immigrant family chasing the American dream and in the process trying to balance the demands of family and career in a foreign country.
During her speech accepting the award, Youn spoke candidly and lovingly about how her two sons inspired her to work hard on the movie. By way of a public tribute to her sons, her speech was a direct but personal admission of what parents owe their children. It was also indirectly, an effort to continue to teach, (even in old age and as only a dutiful parent can do) a particular kind of agency - of usefulness - to her children. Her age, her win and her speech, all hold a special place in our hearts because they offer not just an antidote to ageism and chauvinism but also a hint of where talent and tenacity can take a mother. With that, happy Mother’s Day and congratulations to Youn on her unprecedented win...
Across all disciplines, professions and trades, and amidst their calcified attire, jargon and conceit, there is always a point of fascination and interest. This point is the bow tie worn by men who would have defied expectation and common sense to wear a tie. Actually, when a man chooses to wear a bow tie, it is not only an unexpected fashion statement; it is also singular (he will be alone dressed that way); and it is also an assertion of independence from comforming to the default uniform of a tie.
A childhood friend from the village wears his bow tie regularly in the newsroom; a former student wears it sometimes when he consults; and another former student wears it occasionally when he serves the public. Although these men have never met and reside in different parts of the country, it is their preference for bow ties that finds them a common sartorial home. Significantly, in 2010, GQ, the influential men’s lifestyle magazine, exhorted men to wear bow ties including those with a clip-on, hook-on and strap-on. Bow tie purists were horrified by this and ridiculed the magazine for encouraging what they perceived as bow tie sloppiness.
But if you are a man who is serious about his unique dress sense and expect to be recalled as the only man who had an untied bow tie draped around his neck at the end of an event that you attended, please learn how to tie a bow tie. (Tip: the knot of your bow tie is identical to the knot of your shoe laces, and then you twist it, to fasten the bow tie.) As you learn how to tie it, your bow tie will be off-base, uneven or crooked. But with sufficient practice and the resultant mastery of it, your self-tied bow tie will look as proper as the one of the firebrand African-American preacher (ah, faith again!) who pulls his off just as he does playing the violin. Then your bow tie will put your heart at ease. For that, happy Mother’s Day to the mothers of men who wear bow ties and those who don’t.
**Radipati is a Mmegi contributor