Who is Binaisa?
An engineer, an experimental physicist, a theoretical physicist, and a philosopher were hiking through the hills of Scotland. Cresting the top of one hill, they see, on top of the next, a black sheep. The engineer says: "What do you know, the sheep in Scotland are black." "Well, *some* of the sheep in Scotland are black," replies the experimental physicist. The theoretical physicist considers this for a moment and says "Well, at least one of the sheep in Scotland is black." "Well," the philosopher responds, "on one side, anyway."
So, I think this gives you a clue on who I am. I am an Engineer, a philospher, a historian, a psychologist and a computer specialist. Ask more if you are not satisfied with this and am sure you will get the answer immediatly.
The History that was "Of Queer love"
A colleague of mine had so many aunts, he set them all in one village, and called it the ‘aunt-hill’. I am equally so stocked with nieces, that my home has become one big ‘niece-hall’.
I was pottering about in the garden when one of them, Jolly, came running to me, accompanied by a fellow sprite called Happy, and glibly declared: “Uncle, we are in love!”
I smiled indulgently, wondering how times had changed. In my heyday, love was a very serious matter, involving things like brideprice, marriage, babies and family unions. Nowadays, when you hear them, you think of discos, booze, lodge charges, disease, and condoms. “So, you are in love, huh? Both of you — at the same time?” I asked, my voice dripping with scepticism. They nodded enthusiastically. They had probably come across cute twin brothers.
“How do you know it’s not one of your passing fancies, like Matthew, Mark, Luke or John?” She wiggled her upturned nose, looked at her friend as if for support and stormed me. “It was Jack, Mac, Matt and Lucas, dummy, and they were all nerds. Oh, boys!” she said, and shuddered.
I grimaced. I did not like being called a dummy.
“We are happy and jolly!” They giggled.
“Well, whatever! How do you know you are in love?” I asked, just to make conversation. “We can’t sleep at night, and our hearts throb!” they chorused, and eyed me expectantly.
That was bad. Insomnia, coming so early in life, can lead to a life of endless misery. Heart palpitation might be an early sign of heart disease. Tossing and turning at night, to the best of my knowledge, is not a recommended aerobic exercise.
“Ah! Having your nightmares again, are you? It’s all that junk food you eat!” I said. “Your mother used to get heartburn and blame it on love, kumbe it was the raw mangoes! Take some bicarb; you’ll be all right,” I said. She stamped her little foot with exasperation; a trait she inherited from her mother, and said nothing. When I looked up, the two were in tears. I asked Jolly what the matter was.
“I take the trouble to tell my favourite uncle,” she said with a wretched pout, “and all I get are asinine remarks...,” she said, and spat!
“Hoy! Stick a pin there! Retract the claws!” I butted in. “I am all sympathy and all that, my sweet sugar dumpling; so, cease hostilities. Let’s be jolly good friends as usual,” I said, draping a bony arm round her shoulders.
Nieces are God’s gift to elderly men. They may, occasionally, try a man’s very soul, but by and large, they are a guy’s reprieve from the wear and tear of regular family. What do you think GiGi (classic movie) was all about? We headed for my niece-hall, and flopped on a tattered sofa.
“Uncle, have you ever been in love, I mean, really in love?” she asked, drying her cheeks.
The answer would have been a definite yes, if she had not added that ‘really in love’ bit. Have I? I asked myself.
My inner voice, that miserable sadistic squirt resident in my mind, shook its head sadly. The realisation that I have never been truly in love, made me sad. Was it too late now? I wondered. I shook myself out of the gloomy reverie with an effort, looked at these gullible things, and smiled.
“Of course, my dear; several times!” I lied, and went on to narrate the least scandalous of my love affairs.
I met my true love at a tender age, when I was ‘garaged’ with my uncle in the village, while my parents studied in a distant place. My aunt, a woman of Aesopian wit, told me many local legends of the ‘frog prince’ motif, which intrigued me. Across the valley lived such a fair ‘princess’ — a local chief’s daughter — that captured my heart. The girl and I went to the same school. Every morning she crossed the valley to my home, she arrived with sticky swamp mud all over her legs. We washed our legs together; she washing mine, and I hers. She had fantastic legs.
We breakfasted together on my sweet potatoes and beans, supplemented with her cold milk from a small milkpot. Then we smeared our legs with cow ghee!”
“Yucky!” “You can yuck all you want, but it did wonders with my ‘puff-adder-skin’ on the legs!” At school, she was as my ‘somebody’!
“What’s that?”
“Same as sweetheart, but more profound than girl/boyfriend!”
“Oh?” her eyes lit up.
“In the evening,” I continued my tale, “when the big fellows were playing football, we played house!”
“Uncle, did you ever get, er, well... y'know... intimate with her?” my niece asked, looking intently in my face.
“You mean, like did we sleep together?”
“Y-yes!”
“Oh, yes, we did! Once or twice, I think!”
My niece rubbed her hands with excitement, as I went on with my tale.
“One evening there was a fierce storm. She could not make it across the valley to her home, so she slept over. It was a normal neighbourly thing then.”
“You said once or twice. When was the second time?”
“When her elder sister was getting married, a big feast took place at her home. She invited me over. We cuddled behind the calves’ pen, eating our ritual roast potato and milk; and fell asleep. We were only woken up by the herdsmen the following morning!”
“Didn’t her parents give you hell?”
“What for?”
“Gee! The parents of those days were more understanding than the present ones.” “You can say that again!” I rejoined with a smile.
“Then an awful thing happened. My parents finished their course, and were posted to an inaccessible mountainous county,” I said with a heavy sigh.
“Did you ever meet again then?”
“Oh, yes, several decades later! It drove me to hospital!”
“W-what?”
“This is what I’ve been trying to tell you all along. Having palpitations when you see your boyfriend is not a good thing. It maybe an early sign of heart disease, such as mine!”
“Well, a girlfriend is better than a boyfriend any time,” she said, embracing and kissing her friend.
She only stopped when she saw the horror on my face. I had, at last, realised what these two were; and was aghast. Curious thing, though, Happy looked pregnant.
“You mean you two are...?” I turned away in shock, unable to say it.
“Gay? Oh, yes! We love each other. We don’t need beastly boyfriends!” she said defiantly, as the two, hand in hand, stormed out of the room, and banged the door. The poor things were queers! Fine, but then, how did Happy get pregnant? Somebody out there, who knows about these things, please enlighten me.
