Voting at the memorial service

An eloquent speaker who gave a moving eulogy of the deceased, a friend of his, received a standing ovation, which mutated into a powerful hymn. Modulasetulo, who had succumbed to its hypnotic effect, regained his senses, signaled for the singing to end, said a few words and welcomed on stage the next speaker.

A dark and short man stood up. ‘I just want to talk about reconciliation versus economic development,’ he said after uttering “all protocol observed” and informing everybody that he is commanding a senior position at the municipality. His maroon suit was gleaming. KK of Muvhango would have been jealous. His white shirt, with its thick decorated collar, clamored for recognition under a woolen scarf of the South African national flag.

Most of what he said flew past me. I was distracted by the commotion of people whom, at first, I thought were pressed and therefore they were consulting the bathroom. But they were not returning. Instead, more people were emptying the chairs.

Once or twice my ears were of good use. So I heard the speaker lambasting the financial services company (the employer of the deceased) for not doing their work of making the nation to invest money so that government could lead a wealthy society. ‘Government is being blamed for the things we are not responsible for,’ he said. I was curious to follow this intellectual speech. But once again I was distracted.

A man who parked a taxi right in front of the church came in towards me, folded his arms, stretched his neck this way and that way as if he was searching for somebody in particular, and prodded me with a bizarre question, ‘What is the occasion?’ The number of empty chairs was increasing. I had barely managed to say ‘it is a memorial service’ when he asked ‘Who is this guy?’ I did not know the speaker.

The banners of the company the deceased worked for expressly dotted the yard from the gate. The people who left their warm chairs to tremble in the cold outside were chatting in hushed tones. I was there to eavesdrop; to catch the hint of what led to them to doing this.

‘Daaiman wa bora man!’ said a very tall man with a sharp Adam’s apple as I squeezed past him. ‘What does he know about our company?’ asked a lady standing among those wearing corporate attire like her. The other one mused ‘So we are running the country down?’ Few of those who overheard giggled. I could hear Mr. Municipal Official still blowing hot air on the pulpit. And the people had run away from it, to complain about it.

I was still marveling at the 20-something minutes of a swelling church yard, a half-empty church building, a belligerent municipal official doing more damage than the reconciliation he promised to talk about – and not saying much about the deceased in his speech - when someone peeped through the door to inform everybody who was standing outside, ‘He is done.’ Immediately, scores of people filed back inside the church.

I followed them. I reached my spot to find that the taxi driver was thoroughly amused. ‘The guy was still going on,’ he told me; ‘Modulasetulo had to beg him to finish so that Moruti could speak.’ He giggled more. ‘Clearly, the Municipal Official did not get the hint when the people started voting with their feet,’ whispered somebody from behind us.